Two to Lead
by Missile Envy
Summary: A multi-character perspective on Harry's sixth year involving the Boy Who Lived, the Girl Who's Mother Just Got Sliced Up, a mythical warrior, a bitter divorcee, Draco Malfoy, Ginny Weasley, Lucius Malfoy's hair and a sex swing.
1. Default Chapter

**Chapter 1: Muggles, Murder, Monsters and Mercenaries**

The front door banged shut, signaling Uncle Vernon's departure for work. Harry rolled over in bed and blinked at his slightly blurry bedroom. Yawning, he picked up his glasses from the bedside table. He stretched lazily, trying to ignore the fact that his nightshirt couldn't seem to keep up with his growth. Rolling over onto his back, Harry put his hands behind his head and stared up at the ceiling. He made no move to get up. He didn't really think about anything. He just stared. 

If there was one thing Harry had plenty of, it was time to kill. 

He'd been back at the Dursleys' for a week. They left him to his own devices - something he preferred - which largely included lying in bed staring at the ceiling, writing to his friends and visiting the sights of Little Whinging when he felt the need for a bit of excitement. _The life of The Boy Who Lived is a glamorous one indeed,_ he thought dully. 

Not that there weren't a great many things happening; there were. They just weren't happening to him. Hermione was traveling in Spain with her parents, Ron was leaving next week to help the twins set up their new store - much to the chagrin of his mother - and rumors were abounding as to what Voldemort was up to and where he would attack next. 

But all of that seemed very far away from number four, Privet Drive. The magical world in general seemed very far away, and Harry couldn't exactly say that he was unhappy with the arrangement. Last summer, he had been nearly frantic, wanting to know what was going on and what the Order was doing to stop it. This year he just wanted it all to go away for a while. 

If the rest of his summer was spent writing letters, staring at the ceiling and walking around Little Whinging, then that was just fine with him. 

Harry waited until the digital numbers beside him read ten o'clock before rolling off the bed. After showering and getting dressed, Harry packed a bag with some of his snacks left over from the train ride home and crept downstairs, hoping to make it outside without Aunt Petunia or Dudley hearing him. His stomach growled as he passed the kitchen, with the faint smell of bacon and eggs tormenting him as he tiptoed across the entryway. He had a much larger appetite than he used to - not that the Dursleys cared, or felt the need to feed him any more than usual - but he found himself avoiding mealtimes anyway. He didn't particularly relish dinnertime with the Dursleys anyway. 

Harry quickly opened the front door and dashed through, kicking it shut behind him. He trotted down the street and made for one of his numerous local hiding places: the library. The place had become one of Harry's favorite haunts in the past week; it was the perfect place to escape. It was quiet and he certainly wasn't in danger of running into the Dursleys there. Some part of him thought Hermione would be proud. 

The librarian eyed him suspiciously, as she did every time he came in. She obviously expected him to start trouble. Teenagers did not exactly frequent the local library during the summer. Grabbing a stack of newspapers, Harry sat down at a table in the corner and began reading. 

Harry hadn't started reading the newspapers because of any great interest in current events. In fact, if he had to be completely honest with himself, he just didn't feel the desire to make the commitment that reading an entire book would entail. So he leafed through, reading the stories that interested him, spending the most time on the comics and finally reading his horoscope: 

_

Bring imagination to the table and good things will happen for you. Keep your mind open and try to see yourself as others see you. Don't let yourself become embroiled in the machinations of family members.

_

Well, at least it wasn't predicting a horrific death for him. It actually seemed fairly positive, as far as Harry's experience with astrology went. Maybe that was a Muggle thing. Having wasted much more time contemplating his horoscope in the newspaper than the average sane person probably should, Harry returned the papers and headed over to the park a few blocks away to enjoy his Chocolate Frogs. 

He found a bench and munched contentedly, careful to open the package inside his backpack so that the charmed amphibians didn't draw unwanted attention. Harry watched two old men play checkers a short distance away. It wasn't until they finished and he turned his attention to some children playing a game of tag that he noticed the presence of another person on his bench. Another person who was staring at him. 

It was a girl about his age, with long dark brown hair and blue eyes. When he stared back at her, she smiled. She was very pretty in a pale, angular sort of way. This made Harry slightly nervous. He didn't feel he came across very well with pretty girls, considering the whole foolishness with Cho Chang. He was much better with girls he already knew too well to find pretty, like Hermione or Ginny Weasley. 

"You're Harry Potter, aren't you?" she asked. 

"Erm, yes," he answered, startled that she knew his name. Was she magical? And if she was, what the bloody hell was she doing here? 

She smiled wider and held out her hand. "Lucy Wexler." They shook hands briefly. Harry, embarrassed by the contact and the fact that his hand was slightly sweaty, dropped his eyes to his lap. Lucy didn't seem taken aback at all, though Harry found himself suddenly and uncomfortably aware of the fact that his hand-me-down clothes were far too big. 

"I was instructed by one of the local matrons to steer clear of you at all costs, so naturally I thought I should make your acquaintance," she explained, sizing him up with her head cocked to one side. It was a movement that should have seemed affected, yet somehow she pulled it off. "You don't look disturbed." 

Harry puzzled over that comment for a moment before he remembered his aunt and uncle's story to the neighbors about him attending St. Brutus' School for Incurably Criminal Boys. Only to the Dursleys would that be preferable to attending Hogwarts. 

Unsure of what to say, Harry simply shrugged. It wasn't as if he could tell her the truth; she was a Muggle. 

"What's it like there? Are there a lot of fights? Do you have to live in cells?" Her eyes twinkled and Harry got the feeling that instead of finding the idea of reform school repugnant, she found it fascinating. 

"It's...ummm...it's all right," he answered. Aside from the Dursleys, when was the last time he'd spoken to a Muggle? Harry didn't know. 

She looked disappointed with his answer. "I figured it would be pretty rough, like prison." 

Harry thought back on his past five years at Hogwarts. "Oh, it can be rough, alright." He thought about Cedric Diggory and Sirius and Professor Trelawny's prophecy briefly before shutting them back in the box he usually kept them in. "It can be really rough." His voice reflected more bitterness than he'd intended. 

Lucy blinked at him sympathetically. "School is bad enough as it is. Throw vicious criminals into the mix and it's got to be even worse than the kennel." She shook her head. 

Harry shook his head a little, confused by the comparison. "The kennel?" 

She laughed shortly. "My boarding school...or my former boarding school, to be exact. It's a highly snooty all-girls affair full of self-important debutantes that I've had the good sense to get myself kicked out of. I call it the kennel because the entire purpose of the place is to train us to look exquisite and breed with the correct sort of male in the hopes of producing desirable offspring with the proper balance of impeccable bloodlines and the ability to bore people to death at fifty meters." She shrugged. "The kennel." 

Harry found himself smiling at this strange girl. "What did you do to get kicked out?" 

She grinned at him. "I took a liking to the _incorrect_ sort of male. Got caught out after curfew in a very unladylike situation." 

Harry felt his face warm at the implications of that statement. Of course, she thought he was a juvenile delinquent, so obviously she thought that he was also the incorrect sort of male. Harry realized that this girl, unlike his classmates - unlike Cho Chang, for example - hadn't the slightest idea what he really was. She thought he was a violent criminal. In fact, she seemed especially intrigued by the idea that he was a violent criminal, which he found rather odd and probably not entirely healthy. 

If occurred to him that no matter what sort of grandiose lies he made up about himself, she would believe him. He was a juvenile delinquent, after all. 

He was a bad ass. 

The role was certainly preferable to being The Boy Who Lived And Is Going To Kill Voldemort Or Be Murdered Like a Chump. He felt suddenly lighter somehow, with the weight of Harry Potter-dom off of his shoulders. He actually found himself grinning back at Lucy Wexler, struck by the headiness of his newfound persona. Leaning a casual arms across the back of the bench so that his hand was very nearly in contact with her shoulder, he asked in his best British James Dean voice, "What would your parents think about you talking to someone like me?" 

She leaned a bit closer to him, close enough for him to notice that she smelled like flowers and that her eyes were a pale blue, shot through with gray and a bit of violet. "They would absolutely flip," she assured him. Lucy looked briefly thrilled at the possibility before she scowled and stuck her tongue out, withdrawing from him a few inches. "Except they wouldn't." 

"Really?" He was thrown by her abrupt mood changes. 

"You have to understand; they're both psychiatrists. They're programmed specifically _not_ to flip...at any time...under any circumstances whatsoever. They'd probably just give me a mind-numbingly boring lecture on the importance of making mature sexual decisions." She rolled her eyes. 

Harry coughed. Actually, he choked, but he managed to pass it off as a cough. "S-s-sexual decisions?" He couldn't believe he'd just said the word 'sexual' to a girl. Of course, the Harry Potter she thought he was had probably said the word a thousand times. Hell, he'd probably _had_ sex. The mere thought made Harry want to bounce around in his seat like a little kid. 

"Well, you see," she said in a mock serious voice, apparently imitating her parents, "this is a very important age in the development of a young woman. She needs to find ways to express herself sexually in a manner that takes into account both her emotional maturity and her physical safety, and this person I've never heard of once said this and that other person I've never heard of said that and blah, blah, blah." 

At the mention of physical safety, Harry thought about Cedric Diggory and Sirius. Two people had already died because of him. Four people, if he counted his parents. Remembering them brought on a wave of depression. "Maybe you should listen to them," he advised Lucy. 

She leaned in toward him conspiratorially and he found himself forgetting about Cedric and Sirius and instead being fascinated by a faint sprinkling of freckles across her nose. "Harry, they sent me here for the summer to stay with my sister while they get a divorce. What makes you think they know what the hell they're talking about?" 

"I guess you have a point," he breathed. 

She drew back and slapped him playfully on the arm, grinning. "See? Emotional maturity." 

Harry just blinked at her. He had a feeling that referred to something that had been said earlier in the course of the conversation, but he couldn't for the life of him remember what it was. 

"Now, let's go show you to my sister. You'll freak _her_ out, at least." 

Vancouver 

Thera woke up suddenly to a loud ringing sound next to her head. It was a telephone, but it wasn't hers, and she sure as hell wasn't going to answer it. 

"Bruno," she said loudly, poking the bundle of covers next to her. It groaned faintly. "Bruno," she said again. "Your phone is ringing." 

"So answer it," the answer was muffled into the pillow. 

"I'm not answering your phone," she said, mildly offended. "I barely even know you. What if you have a girlfriend? What if that's her and I answer the phone and she's a raving lunatic who decides to come over here and murder us both in our bed of sin and depravity?" 

"I don't have a girlfriend." The phone continued ringing, and Bruno's voice was slightly more awake. 

"Well, your mother, then. If I answer the phone and it's your mother, then I'm going to have to tell her that I think you were a good lay, but I'm not really sure because I can't remember anything after you gave me those pills..." 

"Fine, goddammit!" He threw back the covers and rolled on top of her so that he could reach the phone. "Yeah?...What?!...Oh, shit, Toby, you're kidding me..." He was alert now, climbing over her to sit on the edge of the bed and run a hand through his sleep-matted hair. 

Deciding that this had nothing to do with her, Thera got up to brush her teeth, dodging the occasional empty beer bottle courtesy of Bruno's bohunk idiot friends. She was well into brushing and trying desperately to ignore the brownish tinge to the sink when Bruno appeared in the doorway, wearing a sweatshirt and unbuttoned jeans. 

"Listen, I gotta go," he said apologetically. "My brother flipped his car last night and all hell is breaking loose." 

Thera rinsed her mouth and spat. "So you're kicking me out?" 

Bruno looked suddenly uncomfortable, which she found cute. Part of the reason she'd taken an interest in him in the first place had been because she could make him squirm at the drop of a hat. 

"Well, don't make it sound like that..." he started. 

Thera simply held up a hand. "It's perfectly fine. Just let me get dressed and you can drive me home." She went back into the bedroom and started gathering her things. 

"Actually, my cousin Toby's picking me up and we're going the opposite way..." he said sheepishly. 

She turned around and fixed him with a stare. She crossed her arms very slowly, drawing out the moment to make him suffer a bit more. 

"So you're telling me," she said icily, "that not only are you kicking me out, you are also allowing me to find my own way home? How terribly generous of you, Bruno." 

"It's not like that..." There was a whiny edge to his voice, and Thera knew she had him. 

"Your thoughtfulness and desire to put others above yourself is unsurpassed in the history of mankind." 

"I'll call a cab, okay?" 

She continued as if he hadn't spoken. "Yes, truly a king among men. Why, I personally think it's a travesty that there isn't an annual holiday in your honor." 

"I'll pay for it! I'll pay for the cab! Just lay off, will you?" 

Thera held out a hand. "Thirty." 

"It's not...why..." he spluttered, knowing very well that it wouldn't take half that much to get her home. "Fine," he conceded, handing over the cash. "Are you always like this?" 

"Bruno, you know very well that I told my mother I would be gone all weekend. On the basis of that information, she's made arrangements with a certain male friend that most likely involve me not _being_ in the apartment. This change of plans displeases me." 

"It displeases you? Who talks like that?" 

"I do," she said simply. 

"So don't go home then. Go somewhere else." Bruno watched with appreciation as she got dressed. "And why are you so worried about you mom anyway? So you come back early. What's she going to do, kill you?" 

Thera thought that over for a moment. "Doubtful, but not improbable." 

Bruno shook his head, getting a strange look on his face. Thera was familiar with the look. She'd seen it plenty of times before whenever men like Bruno were faced with the force of nature known as Reina Castelar: a mix between lust, distaste, worship and sheer terror. Only her mother was capable of producing such a combination in another human being. 

"Your mom's...weird," he finally said. 

"Yes, I know." Poor Bruno had come into contact with her mother at the Mars Bar down the highway. Unfortunately for him, Reina had been in fine form that night. Thera had just been tagging along, another mother-daughter excursion. Reina liked to take her daughter bar-hopping; she felt it gave them a forum to bond. Thera had a feeling that this method for raising a teenage daughter was probably frowned upon by you average child psychologist, but then Reina believed that shrinks were for Muggles. 

Actually her exact words had been something along the lines of: "If any of them bothered to yank their heads out of other people's psyches for a moment and notice that there was a magical world, they'd promptly put us all in straight jackets." 

Thera had to admit it was a fairly good argument. 

Her cab arrived before Toby did, so Thera kissed Bruno perfunctorily and got inside, staring at the drab landscape of tract houses as they slowly turned into an equally drab landscape of apartment buildings. 

Thera closed her eyes and lay her head back, remembering Zihuatenejo. They'd been there for almost a year when they'd learned of the Dark Lord's return. Thera even remembered where she was when she heard the news. She had long frequented the same waterfront restaurant - one she'd picked for no particular reason out of a long line of them - and out of boredom had offered to translate the menu for the restaurant owner into English, in order to entice the nine million bloody tourists who swarmed in every year. 

Her payment: two plates of shrimp and free cerveza for life. 

Thera had to admit she'd done a damn good job, too. 'Shrimp with garlic' had become 'Succulent fresh bay shrimp smothered with garlic and slow-cooked in the style of Vera Cruz.' And then Reina had rushed in, looking paler than usual. 

Her mother had said three words: "We're leaving. Now." It was one thing to be an ex-Death Eater on the run from a relatively underfunded and disinterested Ministry. It was quite another to be an ex-Death Eater on the run from other Death Eaters, not to mention the Big Man himself. 

And so here they were in Vancouver. They'd stay a few more days, and then they'd be off to some other weekly rental in some other city. Thera had a feeling this was going to go on for a good long time. The Dark Lord showed no signs of taking up the olive branch anytime soon. 

The cab pulled up to her building and Thera paid the man, tucking the remainder of the money into the pocket of her jeans. Not desiring to walk in on Reina and the carpet salesman _in flagrante delicto_, Thera knocked on the apartment door before opening it with her key. 

"Hello?" she called, poking her head inside. "Minor entering, so put some bloody clothes on." Nobody answered, but the bedroom door was closed, indicating that the two were probably sleeping. Thinking it probably best that she go as long as possible without being discovered, Thera tiptoed over to the sofa, where she dropped her backpack and kicked off her shoes before heading to the bathroom so she could towel off. 

If she hadn't been trying to keep quiet, she probably never would have heard the _squish_ her foot made as she passed the kitchen. As it was, she paused and looked down at an ugly dark red stain that had spread across the linoleum floor and soaked into the hallway carpet. 

A wave of cold swept over her and her muscles literally locked up. The apartment now seemed almost unbearably loud in its silence. Thera tried to breathe, but her lungs had stopped working properly. She didn't want to look into the kitchen. She'd seen enough horror movies to know that it would be a very, _very_ bad idea to look into the kitchen, but she couldn't stop herself. 

There was blood everywhere; it had collected into a large pool on the floor and was splattered all over the cabinets, the walls and even the ceiling. Looking through the doorway, Thera couldn't see the entire room, only half of it, but she could see the top of someone's head on the floor and a hand - a man's hand - flung out next to it. 

_

It's not my mother. It's not my mother. It's the carpet salesman.

_


	2. Leaving

Chapter 2: Leaving

Little Whinging, Surrey

Lucy's sister lived on Wisteria Walk in a square brick house with frilly curtains in all of the windows and the required immaculate lawn. "If you think the outside is heinous, wait until we get inside," she whispered.

Harry didn't answer her; he was still hung up on his rebel image. _Act cool. Act cool. She's looking for cool. Sexual. She just said 'sexual' like she was saying 'banana,' or…oh, no, don't think about bananas. Do NOT think about bananas…think about…oranges! NO! _Harry glanced at Lucy's chest. _Think about cold things, very cold things. Cold things that are neither penis-shaped nor breast-shaped. STOP THINKING ABOUT HER BREASTS!!! Think about frozen peas or something…_

Lucy Wexler, completely oblivious to Harry's plight, invited him into the house before she forcibly slammed the front door and yelled, "Emily! I'm home! I have a visitor!" Her shout was immediately followed by the distant sound of a baby crying. A frazzled young woman came storming out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dish towel. Her hair – the same color as Lucy's – was more or less in a ponytail, but pieces of it were coming loose and the front of her t-shirt was covered in flour.

"Lucy, how many times do I have to tell you…" the woman's voice trailed off and she stopped abruptly. "Who's this?" The woman seemed to be asking Lucy the question, but she didn't stop glaring at Harry. He was suddenly reminded of a very young Aunt Petunia for some reason.

"Harry Potter," Lucy answered.

"Who?"

"The baby's crying, Em."

Harry could see Emily's mind working, trying to remember who he was, but the cries upstairs were getting more urgent. "That's because you woke him up, you childish little snot," she finally said, looking unaccountably frustrated.

Lucy's eyes widened. "Oh, no! I woke up the _baby_! God forbid!"

Lucy's sister threw the towel at her. "I don't care what bloody issues you're working out right now. It'll take me forever to get him back to sleep. Clean up the kitchen or you can go eat out of the neighbors' rubbish." She started storming up the stairs.

Once her sister was out of sight, Lucy giggled. "That'll keep her occupied for at least half an hour. Let's go to the back room. I have my stereo set up there." Lucy pushed open the door to the kitchen and tossed the dishtowel into the sink. "Don't worry," she assured him. "She knew when she said it that I'd never actually clean up the kitchen."

The back room was a sort of den, Harry supposed. All of the furniture seemed to match. There was a large, stiff-looking sofa with a floral pattern all in shades of blue. On the floor was an area rug made up of stripes – also blue – that seemed to match the colors of the sofa exactly. Curtains on the windows were made of the same floral fabric as the sofa and a collection of white wicker end tables were covered with candles that had never been used and carefully arranged decorator magazines.

"Isn't it terrible?" Lucy asked, looking disgusted. She kicked off her shoes in the middle of the rug and dragged a stereo out from underneath one of the end tables. "Emily and her husband decorated the entire thing out of some yuppie 'conform or die' magazine. She can't stand having my stereo in here, but it's the only place in the house where the music won't wake the _baby_."

"You don't seem to like the baby very much," Harry commented, a smile creeping onto his face. Lucy amused him. She just never seemed to pause for even a moment. She began flipping through CDs.

"The baby wakes me up every morning at six o'clock. The baby spits up on me and messes with my things. Screw the baby." She waved a CD at him. "Do you like the Sex Pistols?"

"Sex? Who? What?" Harry sputtered.

"The Sex Pistols. If you don't like them, I can put on something else."

"Sex…erm…I like them fine, thanks." He was blushing furiously.

Lucy shook her head at him, smiling. "You're so polite. I'd never believe you were in reform school." She put on the CD and a man began ranting incoherently to loud reverberating guitars and drums. "You can sit down if you want."

Harry glanced down at the sofa uncertainly. By the looks of it, he might very well be the first person to ever sit on it. Lucy was watching him expectantly, so he finally lowered himself gingerly. The sofa was, to say the least, not comfortable. That ceased to matter when Lucy sat down next do him, though. She sat down _right _next to him and put her head back, listening to the music.

"The Sex Pistols are one of my biggest musical influences," she said conversationally. "All of that fury." She closed her eyes a listened to the music for a few moments, and Harry fretted over whether or not he should try and kiss her.

_Maybe I should just put my arm around her_, he wondered. He started slowly moving his right arm. The loud music wasn't exactly setting a romantic mood.

"I don't play pure punk, though," Lucy continued. Harry quickly lowered his arm. "I've been going for punk-folk fusion. Keep the intensity of The Pistols, but play acoustic, you know?"

She opened her eyes and looked at him. "So…uh…that's what you want to do, is it? Play music?" Harry wished he knew what he was supposed to do with his hands.

"Not just any music, Harry. Great music. Once I get enough songs together, I'm running off to London to put thousands of pounds of fine education to waste." Harry had no idea what to say to that, so he just nodded. "We've been all wrapped up in my life for a while, haven't we?" she finally said. "Let's talk about you." She cocked her head to the side. "What did you do to get sent to reform school, if you don't mind me asking?"

Harry had momentarily forgotten about his bad-boy persona. _Cool, you idiot, act cool._ "Well, it was a combination of a lot of things," he answered. He was shocked by the smoothness of his voice. Where on earth had that come from? He'd never known before that he was quite this good an actor.

"Really?" Lucy seemed excited. "Like what?"

"Well, I was always getting into trouble in school, getting into fights and stuff." Well, that wasn't such a stretch, Harry figured. After all, he had gotten into plenty of trouble at Hogwarts, and he had had plenty of beatings courtesy of Dudley. A story soon began forming in Harry's head, and he kept talking. He'd never been a terribly good liar, and yet here he was, spinning one of the biggest whoppers in the history of mankind to impress a girl. Harry discovered that most of his Hogwarts experiences could be changed slightly to fit the situation.

"So from the beginning, this guy…uhhh…Tom …had it in for me. He's been trying to kill me…"

"Trying to kill you?" Lucy was both horrified and intrigued.

"Yeah. From the moment I arrived." Harry was starting to warm up to the story, and to his role. "We fought him at the end of my first year – my friends Ron and Hermi…uh…Herman and I – and I thought he would leave us alone after that. Well, I mean we didn't actually fight _him_, we fought one of his goons, Quirrell, but we, I mean _I_, killed him…"

Lucy's blue eyes were wide, mixed with fear and admiration. "You've killed somebody?" she whispered in awe.

"Well, I mean, it was self-defense and all, but…yeah, I guess so."

"Oh, Harry." Lucy swallowed and moved slightly closer to him. She placed a consoling hand on his arm, and Harry felt a bit bolder.

"So then second year…" He was off and running, making the Chamber of Secrets into a boiler room showdown, turning Quidditch into football, the basilisk into a gigantic seventeen-year-old yes man for Tom, Lupin into an alcoholic, Sirius into an ex-convict motorcycle buddy of his father's, and the Tri-Wizard Cup into an academic decathlon (for delinquents, of course); his parents had died in a car accident fleeing the police on trumped-up felony charges. Harry only faltered when he got to the part about Cedric Diggory.

"Tom just killed him? Just like that?"

"Actually, he had his friend Wormtail do it," Harry said flatly. His juvenile delinquent role had lost a bit its luster. He couldn't bring himself to look at Lucy, choosing instead to stare at his lap.

"Harry, that's terrible," she murmured. "How on earth can they let someone like this Tom person just walk around killing people? Did he get sent to prison?"

"No, he didn't. He got sent to…solitary confinement…" _Does that really exist?_ He wasn't sure, but he doubted that Lucy would know the difference. "But this past year there ended up being a big fight between his side and our side."

Lucy had both her hands in front of her mouth. "What happened?" she asked, the question slightly muffled.

Harry couldn't bring himself to talk about Sirius. He'd played along with this whole charade because he thought it would be fun to be someone else, and here he was, back where he started. And yet it felt different somehow. Lucy didn't know anything about him or Voldemort or the wizarding world at all. To her, he wasn't The Boy Who Lived, he was just plain old Harry. A violent, criminal version of Harry, but Harry nonetheless.

He felt her hand rubbing his back, trying to comfort him. When he finally looked up at her, she had tears in her eyes and looked more beautiful than anything he'd ever seen. He was beginning to think he had a complex about crying girls. Maybe it had to do with his 'saving people thing.' Without thinking or planning, he suddenly found himself kissing her. After a moment, she was kissing him too, still rubbing his back.

It was somehow more natural than kissing Cho Chang; his arms went around her, his hands stroked her soft hair and he breathed in her scent, and all the time the kiss was getting deeper and her tongue was in his mouth and his tongue was in hers and it just kept going on and on.

Harry wasn't sure if he moved first or if Lucy did, but suddenly she was lying beneath him on the stupid floral patterned sofa and she was making soft moaning sounds as he kissed her cheek and her ear before moving to place a slow line of kisses down her neck. It was almost as if somebody were whispering directions in his ear, telling him what to do. Harry stroked one hand up the side of her torso, and he was just getting up the courage to touch one of her breasts when the song on the stereo ended and he heard footsteps approaching in the ensuing silence.

Lucy must have heard them, too, because she shoved him away and leapt to the other side of the couch. She smoothed her hair and plastered such a falsely innocent look on her face that Harry found himself laughing harder than he had in a long, long time as Lucy's sister walked into the room, brandishing the dish towel and glaring at them both.

"Lucy, I've just spent a half an hour getting the baby back to sleep and there isn't a chance in hell that dinner's going to be done on time. Send your friend home and help me." Emily spun on her heel and left the room without another word.

Harry and Lucy looked at each other, sharing a guilty smile.

"I guess you should go," she said finally, rising to turn off the stereo and shove it back underneath the end table.

Caught up in the heady new feelings flowing through him, Harry grabbed her as she turned around and kissed her hard and fast. He was pleased to see that her eyes looked faintly glazed as he drew away.

"Meet me tomorrow in the park at noon," he ordered, sending her what he hoped was a sizzling hot look before turning around and walking out of her house, feeling unaccountably like James Bond.

The Burrow

Ginny still found it amazing how much quieter the house was without Fred and George around. The Burrow seemed lonelier without the constant threat of explosions and spontaneous transfigurations. And next week Ron was leaving to help set up the twins' new joke shop, which meant it would be her alone with Mum and Dad. Just like it had been the whole year before she'd gone to Hogwarts.

She'd have their undivided attention. At all times. Until she wanted to throw herself out the window. Not that Ginny didn't love her parents; she truly did. But she also spent nine months a year without them around to tell her what to do and judge her every action and give her unsolicited advice constantly.

When she reached the table, everyone else was already there. Ron's knee was bouncing with anticipation as he eyed the food spread out before them. The minute her bottom touched the seat, his plate was full.

"Ron, I honestly think that your reflexes at the table surpass your reflexes as a Keeper," she commented mildly.

Ron must be growing up, because he actually waited until he swallowed before answering.

"I'm starving and you took your sweet time coming downstairs, didn't you?"

"Knock it off, both of you," Mrs. Weasley said irritably.

Ron froze. "Bit harsh tonight, aren't you, mum?"

Molly and Arthur exchanged a meaningful look. Then Arthur cleared his throat.

"Um, I've got some news for you both. Everyone will know by tomorrow, but I thought it best to clue you in beforehand."

"Is everybody okay?" Ginny asked anxiously.

"Of course, dear, it's nothing like that," her mother reassured her. "It's just that…" She sighed deeply. "Lucius Malfoy has been released from Azkaban."

"Released?! How could he be released?! He's guilty!" Ron looked appalled, and Ginny more or less shared his sentiments, though in all truth she could have guessed it was coming.

"He was under Imperius," Arthur said glumly.

"That's ridiculous," Ginny argued. "We all saw him in the Department of Mysteries, and he was having the time of his life. He laughed maniacally. People under Imperius don't laugh maniacally."

"No, they usually don't. But he wasn't under Imperius _then_," Molly said, her mouth twisting.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Ron asked, puzzled.

"It's an old trick," Arthur said, shaking his head. "Lucius Malfoy has plenty of connections within the Aurors and the Ministry as a whole. I imagine one of them performed the spell on him after he was arrested. Before any suspects are questioned and processed, they are tested to see if they're acting under the influence of mind-confounding curses. The test showed that Lucius was under Imperius. There's no way to tell how long somebody's been under the curse, so he was held for questioning and then released."

"Again," Molly said heavily.

"So that's how is, then? The Malfoys have enough connections that they can just do whatever they please?" Ron had gotten so worked up that he wasn't even actively eating any longer.

"Ron, they're rich and they're related to ninety percent of the people at the Ministry. Of course they can do whatever they please. They always have and they always will," Ginny said simply.

Arthur frowned. "When did you become so cynical?" He turned to his wife. "Molly, when did she become so cynical?"

"Merlin, Arthur, like I've any idea," her mother answered exasperatedly.

They all turned to study Ginny, who began to fidget uncomfortably. "What?" she asked peevishly. "It's true, isn't it?"

"Well, yes," her father qualified, "I suppose it's true, but…"

"But it's cynical of me to actually say it out loud?" Ginny asked.

Bored with the discussion, Ron turned his attention back to stuffing his face.

"I think we're getting a bit off-topic," Molly prompted her husband.

"Haven't we finished with the topic? Lucius Malfoy's out of prison and rich people always get away with things." Again, Ron had swallowed before speaking. Ginny felt an overwhelming urge to applaud.

"Well, actually there's more," their father began in the slow, ominous tone of voice he generally used when he was trying to get his wife to give them the bad news. He glanced at her, but she was apparently going to let him twist in the wind this time. "There have been a lot of rumblings about continued Death Eater activity, so-oo-ooo…" he drew out the last syllable, shooting his wife a slightly more desperate glance.

"So we're going to have extra wards put up around the house," Molly cut in briskly, shooting her husband a glare, "which is going to take a few weeks. In the meantime, we're leaving for Headquarters in the morning."

"Have fun," Ron said, his attention back on his food.

"All of us," Arthur said glumly. "You too."

"What? But I'm going to help Fred and George with the shop!" Ron protested.

"I'm afraid that's out of the question," Molly said repressively. "I know it's a disappointment, but your safety comes first."

"Oh, my safety," Ron replied sarcastically. "Fred and George don't have to go, do they?"

"Fred and George are adults," Mrs. Weasley responded, though the tone of her voice suggested that this was a difficult thing for her to say with a straight face.

"Well, what if I stay at Grimmauld Place and just go over to Diagon Alley during the day?"

"No."

Ron's face was slowly turning pink. "You just didn't want me to go at all, and now you're using the whole thing as an excuse to keep me locked up in that bloody mausoleum for the rest of the summer."

"Ron, that's not the reason we're doing this," Mr. Weasley assured him.

"Do you really expect me to believe that?"

"Ronald Weasley, if you think that we're honestly looking forward to spending the next few weeks in a dreary bastion of dark magic with a sullen, moping teenager…" Molly said in her best chewing-out voice. Her final words were so overused that even Mr. Weasley mouthed along.

"…then you've got another think coming!"

"Haven't we all?" Ginny mused.

"I'm sorry?" Her mother was surprised at being interrupted in the middle of a scolding.

"Got another think coming. I mean, as far as Ron's concerned, it's probably something like, 'Mmmm, potatoes,' but it's really a silly turn of phrase when it comes down to it, isn't it?"

There was a moment of silence, followed by Ron and Mr. Weasley subtly scooting their chairs away from the two women, anticipating the explosion.

It didn't come. Instead, Mrs. Weasley leaned across the table and wagged her finger in her daughter's face.

"I'll have you know that I was an intelligent and erudite human being until I had children. The nonsense that comes out of my mouth on occasion is entirely the result of a life spent trying to reason with toddlers." Ginny gulped, wanting more than anything to tear her gaze away from her mother and yet somehow unable to do so. Watching Mrs. Weasley in action was like driving by a particularly horrific traffic accident. You couldn't help but look.

"And someday," Molly continued, "you'll have children of your own and they'll push you to the limits of human endurance and you'll find yourself saying something that doesn't make one lick of sense, and you know what you'll be thinking when you say it?"

Ginny shook her head slightly.

"You'll be thinking 'Dear Merlin, I've turned into my mother.' It's inevitable," Mrs. Weasley finished, casually scooping a serving of peas onto her plate.

There was another long silence, broken only by Mr. Weasley dropping his fork onto the table with a loud clang. His eyes turned to his wife as he paled slightly, wishing he hadn't drawn attention to himself.

"I'm never having children," Ginny said fervently.

"I remember saying that once," Mr. Weasley sighed.

Mrs. Weasley snorted. "It must have been long before you developed your 'Let's Keep Going Until We Have a Girl' philosophy."

"Well I didn't know it would take so long," Mr. Weasley said defensively.

"Honestly!" Ron broke in. "We're right here, you know!"

"And we love you both very, very much," Mrs. Weasley said warmly, patting them both on the hand.

Ron peered at both of his parents thoughtfully before looking over at his sister. "I think I'm with you, Ginny," he said, stuffing a wad of meatloaf into his mouth. "Are Harry and Hermione coming to Headquarters, too?" Ron's manners had apparently worn out their welcome; he was back to talking with his mouth full.

"Isn't Hermione traveling?" Ginny asked, knowing that it was probably slightly pathetic for her to know so much about her brother's friends.

"Yeah, but Harry can come, can't he?"

"Harry's staying with his relatives for now," Mrs. Weasley said firmly. "That's how Dumbledore wants it."

"Well, can I at least borrow Errol to let him know what's going on?"

"Yes, you may, but then I want both of you to pack your belongings _tonight_, by which I mean _before you go to bed_. I will not have us rushing about in the morning trying to locate errant socks, and if one of you tells me after we get there that you've forgotten something, then I'll find something decidedly nasty for you to clean. And there is going to be a meeting of the Order tomorrow night and I don't want to see hide nor hair of either or you. Are we understood?"

"Yes, mum," Ron and Ginny said in unison, both knowing very well that no matter how much planning went into the move and how much packing they'd done the night before, the morning would nevertheless be spent rushing about and it was almost certain that one of them would forget something important. They also had some Extendable Ears left over that would need to be put to good use.

Fred and George may have left The Burrow, but their spirit remained.

Malfoy Manor

Thera came fully awake in an instant, which meant someone had Ennervated her. There was no long, slow climb into consciousness, no muddled head, no wondering why she had woken up on a nice, soft bed in the middle of a bed-chamber straight out of a gothic horror movie. There was none of that. Thera went from zero to scared shitless in less than a second.

She leapt off of the bed. Someone had been sitting in a chair in the corner of the room and they rose at the movement. In the limited light, she couldn't tell whether it was a man or a woman, but it didn't really matter at this point. Thera had no intention of ending up like her mother and the loser. If this person was going to kill her, she was damn well going to take a few pieces of them with her.

Searching in vain for a weapon, Thera was also trying to move closer to the door as the person in the corner approached her, on the off chance that it was unlocked. Finally, a middle-aged wizard with long, flowing blonde hair stepped into the circle of light next to the bed. Instead of looking threatening or bloodthirsty, he looked amused. He didn't look amused in a way that was comforting.

"You may relax, my dear. I assure you that you are not in any immediate danger," he said in a snobby, cold, upper-crust voice.

Thera considered her options, including the fact that there was no way this sort of person left a prisoner's door unlocked, before putting on a show of relaxing. If he thought she was relaxed, he wouldn't expect her to…oh, say, suddenly grab the bedside lamp and bash him on the head.

"Who are you?" she asked carefully.

He didn't answer, instead choosing to give her a once-over, taking in her jeans and oversized Notre Dame sweatshirt. The look he gave her implied in no uncertain terms that she was found lacking. "Dear, dear, what _has_ Reina been doing with you?" he asked in the same tone of voice.

Thera wasn't going to play this game. If she thought about her mother right now, he'd have her right where he wanted her, namely cowering at his feet. "Who are you?" she repeated.

The man raised an eyebrow. "Quite the conversationalist, aren't we?" He turned and swept across the room to the door, opening it with a dramatic flourish as his hair fell artfully around his shoulders. It hadn't been locked after all. _Interesting._

"You're free to leave anytime you wish, of course," he offered, innocence practically oozing out of him. "It's not as if you're a _prisoner_ here."

_Yeah. Sure. Right._ "Who are you?" she repeated yet again, in a tone suggesting that he might be having difficulty understanding the question.

He smiled thinly. "I am Lucius Malfoy, and I happen to be your closest living relative."

At that point Thera actually did relax. She knew plenty about Lucius Malfoy. He'd given the most damaging testimony against her mother years ago. He was one of the Death Eaters who had named names, serving up his friends and family and claiming to be under Imperius in order to save his own ass. Not that she judged him for this; after all, Reina would have done the same thing in a heartbeat if everybody she knew hadn't been arrested already.

Suffice it to say, Thera had a feeling that Lucius Malfoy was hardly the type to ruin one of his guestrooms by slicing up a teenager.

He'd order somebody else to do it. Probably in a dungeon.

"Pleased to meet you, Cousin Lucius," she replied evenly. He was definitely a cousin of some sort. _His grandfather and my great-grandfather were brothers, so that would make him my _fourth_ cousin? _Thera's reasoning was interrupted when she saw his eyes flare with anger.

Lucius slowly approached until he was standing right in front of her, the flickering lamp creating somewhat disturbing shadows on his face. He towered over her, but then everybody towered over her. Thera had always detested being short. It was nearly impossible to establish superiority over someone who could stop any physical threat on your part by putting a hand on your head and holding you at arm's length.

"I suppose you're wondering why we didn't give you the same treatment as your traitorous mother?" he practically spat at her.

The ability to get under other people's skin is something that can't be learned; Thera had it naturally and in spades. She was surprised that it had taken such a short time for her to nudge Lucius over the line. "Traitors come in all shapes and sizes, don't they?"

His face screwed up into a mask of rage for the briefest of instants before slipping back into cold indifference. "She should have come when she was called," he hissed at her.

"Why? So you'd have a prize to give the Ministry if the Dark Lord runs into another nasty infant?" Thera hissed back, trying to force Lucius into showing his hand. If she was in Malfoy Manor and she was still alive, then he must have some sort of plan for her. Dear Cousin Lucius hadn't had her brought here – alive – out of the goodness of his heart. Thera was not going to let him toy with her.

As it was, her plan worked all too well. Lucius bared his teeth and slapped her. Really hard. She only barely managed to remain standing. _And that would be a pyrrhic victory_, she thought, rubbing her jaw.

"If you still wish to follow in her footsteps, that can be arranged." All surface efforts at hiding his anger had fallen by the wayside. Spittle flew out of his mouth when he spoke and a lock of his long, white-blonde hair hung haphazardly – yet still gracefully – across his face.

"But that won't happen, will it?" Thera fought to keep her voice calm and even. The unemotional one always had the upper hand, as Lucius should well know. "You have a reason for bringing me here, so tell me what it is."

And in the blink of an eye, his mask was back in place and Lucius tossed the errant strands of his hair behind his shoulders. "The Dark Lord felt that you deserved the opportunity of serving him, as your father once did. He thinks you may be," Lucius paused for effect, "_useful_."

There was something wrong with the logic in that, if it was true. Thera found it hard to believe that Voldemort would go out of his way to obtain a pitifully untrained fifteen-year-old as a new recruit. And frankly, if he was looking for some loyalty from her, then why would he send a couple of orthodontally-impaired followers to cut up her mother? Wouldn't it have been more intelligent to murder the daughter and kidnap the fully-trained former Death Eater?

Of course, reasoning it all out seemed to be fairly pointless, since turning down his offer was probably not an option.

"Useful how?" she asked warily.

Lucius simply smiled. "You'll see." And with that, he left the room, closing the door behind him. This time, Thera heard the distinct "click" of a dead bolt falling into place.

Still smiling, Lucius turned from the door and nearly ran into Severus Snape. Lucius started, but Snape didn't react at all.

"New toy?" the Professor asked disinterestedly.

"Why must you always sneak up on people?" Lucius snapped after getting his bearings back and smoothing his hair into place. "What are you doing up here, anyway?"

"He's here," Snape said evenly. "I thought you should know."

"Yes, he's expected," Lucius replied, turning to stride down the hallway. "He's here about the girl."

"So she's for him, then?" Snape asked, keeping pace. "I certainly hope you haven't been messing about with the Master's possessions, Lucius."

"Of course not. I merely woke her up and apprised her of the situation."

"Who is she?"

"Castelar's daughter."

Severus looked at him in surprise. "Really? Where was she been all this time? With Reina?"

"Yes. They found her in some hovel in Vancouver," Lucius said distastefully.

"How the mighty have fallen," Snape mused.

"Reina always did have horrendous taste," Lucius sighed. "They found her in bed with some Muggle. Nott said Flint made an utter mess of them both. Why are all of the new recruits so…enthusiastic?"

"They're young, I suppose. Eager to please, much like we once were."

"Hmph. Well, in any case, Reina is most certainly out of the picture now."

"Killed Muggle-style," Snape said, shaking his head. "I suppose she deserved it, in any case. But what could he possibly want with Castelar's daughter?"

"The point isn't why he wants her, it's _that_ he wants her, and that we managed to obtain her for him," Lucius replied. "And I think we all agree it's about time something went _right_ around here."

The Cardinal's Castle

Location Unknown

Fox didn't really have much to do until Dumbledore showed up, so she alternated between cleaning her already spotless sword collection, wandering around their chambers aimlessly and reenacting whatever kung-fu fight sequences she could remember from various Bruce Lee movies.

She liked the kung-fu movies because they let her get out nervous energy, and Fox had plenty of it. She had never met another Guardian before; the gloom-and-doom stories referenced by The Cardinal generally ended in the combined power becoming impossible to control and fire raining down from the heavens much in the classic style of Sodom and Gomorrah. On a subconscious level (or a superconscious one, depending on how you choose to look at it), each Guardian knew what every other one was up to, because it was necessary to work in tandem, all parts of the same machine.

Guardians only approached each other if something really big was going down, and even then, they weren't inclined to meet for tea.

Fox also wondered what to tell Amina and Gautham. Having lived with her for eight years, they knew that she wasn't _normal_, but their profession wasn't one that encouraged an inquisitive nature. Besides, the small number of people who even knew about The Guardians generally thought they were a myth.

Deep in thought, Fox was halfway through the final battle in _Enter the Dragon_ when Amina put her foot down.

"You realize it's impossible to work with you grunting and making fake sound effects and thumping around in here," Amina said, throwing down the blueprints of Hogwarts, which she'd spread out on a large table.

Gautham looked up from his chair near the fireplace, where he'd been wading his way through a pile of documents and scribbling furiously. "Now, now, ladies, I don't want to see a catfight between you two. It wouldn't last long enough for me to enjoy it."

"Sorry," Fox apologized. "I'm just bored."

"Well, be bored quietly," Amina grumbled, turning back to the blueprints. "Polish your swords again or something."

"Fox polishing her swords isn't a quiet activity," Gautham pointed out. "She talks to them. She flatters them until they blush. I think she's trying to encourage the green one to propose to her."

Fox shrugged. "Swords need love, too."

"_You_ need love, Fox. You desperately need to get laid," Amina commented, not looking up from her work.

"Well, she's not likely to if she insists that the silver rapier sulks if she doesn't let it sleep with her," Gautham returned.

"Some men get turned on by a woman who sleeps with her swords," Fox said lightly, wandering over to the wardrobe in which they had stowed their belongings. "However," Fox continued, opening the door and rifling around a bit, "the average woman would be frightened out of her mind to know that she has to move over and make room for this."

Fox turned around, holding a dirty, bedraggled stuffed tiger with a silly grin on its face and an eye missing.

Gautham paled noticeably. "You leave Baba out of this."

"Baba is damaging your sex life, Gautham," Amina agreed, her eyes back on the blueprints after shooting the tiger a disgusted glance. "A girl simply doesn't like to hear: 'I'm good-looking, I'm intelligent, I work for one of the most powerful men in the magical world, and by the way, would you mind sleeping on the other side? My smelly stuffed animal likes to be on the left.'"

"He doesn't smell," Gautham said, sounding offended.

"Yes, he does," Fox and Amina answered simultaneously.

At that point, there was a polite knock at the door. Fox tossed Baba back into the wardrobe and opened the door to admit one of The Cardinal's secretaries. All of them were young, beautiful women, dressed in gauzy red robes. This one was brunette and curvy in a way that shouldn't be humanly possible. Upon seeing who it was, Gautham sat up and smiled. One of his main goals in life was to talk one of these women into having sex with him. He had thus far been supremely unsuccessful in this pursuit.

"Albus Dumbledore has arrived," the woman purred. "He'd like to speak to you each individually. Who would like to go first?"

"Fox," Amina said flatly. Gautham simply grinned wider.

"Very well," the woman said, smiling. "Follow me, please."

Sighing, Fox followed the woman, who seemed to slink more than she actually walked, as if the whole point of the endeavor were not actually to reach a particular destination, but instead to melt the paint from the walls. Fox tried to ignore the panting male portraits disrupting their neighbors in their efforts to get a better view of the secretary's voluptuous rear end.

"She's my favorite one," sighed an elderly philosopher who had moments ago been reading by candlelight, making Fox suddenly wonder if there was a waiting list for portraits to get into The Cardinal's halls.

They proceeded down a series of corridors Fox had never seen before, filled with Japanese artwork and artifacts. A pair of geisha girls in one painting giggled and hid behind their fans as the two women walked by, but Fox got the distinct sensation that even _they_ were admiring the servant's assets.

They must be getting close, because Fox's nerve endings were beginning to buzz, as if she were approaching a Muggle electrical source. The voice that guided her, warned her of danger and whispered people's thoughts to her seemed to have split in two, each talking over each other, causing a cacophony that made it difficult to concentrate.

"So, what's your name?" Fox asked, more to keep focused than out of any particular curiosity.

"Bertha," the woman answered, sending Fox a smoldering glance over her shoulder.

"Bertha?" Fox repeated. _The embodiment of every teenage boy's wet dream is named Bertha?_

"I was named after my grandmother," the woman informed her as she stopped in front of a random door. "He's inside. I'll be waiting here when you've finished."

"Thank you," Fox mumbled, the raw, energized feeling only growing as she opened the door and proceeded into a comfortably appointed study. Shelves of books rose up so high she couldn't see where they ended, and the room was filled with cozy sofas and recliners. A rug made from what appeared to be the hide of a black bear lay in front of a fireplace – thankfully without a fire, considering the season – and footstools and overstuffed pillows abounded. The windows looked out over a rolling countryside that had to be magical, considering that the windows in her chamber looked out over a dense forest.

Albus Dumbledore was standing at the far end of the room with his hands behind his back, rocking a bit on the balls of his feet as he surveyed the collection of books. He turned when she entered, and Fox felt a momentary surge in the power connecting them. It was exhilarating and overwhelming at the same time, as if one misstep by either of them could blow the roof off of the castle.

When his voice sounded in her head, however, it was gentle, flowing in the comforting rhythm of the ancient language of The Guardians.

_So you are Fox. _He smiled and clasped his hands to his chest. His eyes were blue like The Cardinal's, only clearer, and with a peculiar sort of twinkle in them.

_And you are Dumbledore,_ she replied, feeling too edgy to smile.

_Let's sit, shall we?_ He gestured to a pair of sofas nearby. Fox sat stiffly, still unnerved by the amount of power between them. _It will take some getting used to, won't it?_ Dumbledore commented, settling himself across from her.

_Is it going to be like this any time we're near each other?_

_Well, there are some steps we can take to make it a bit less…distracting._

_Such as?_

His blue eyes peered at her from over the top of his half-moon glasses. _Why don't you relax, Fox? What is happening right now is what happens when two Guardians meet each other. Each of us has a great power, and it only grows exponentially when we join together. But you must remember that power blindly serves its master, for good or for evil. The two of us could obliterate the planet, or we could solve all of its problems. Both outcomes are equally likely, depending upon our motivations._

_As it is in any situation._

He chucked. _Precisely._

Fox tried very hard to concentrate on the matter at hand. _So why did you want me to come to Hogwarts?_

I wanted to restore your power. It took us a long time to realize that it needed to be this way. No offense to your position as the Guardian of War and Destruction, but your predecessors haven't exactly been very popular with the rest of us in the past. On the other hand, things have gotten decidedly out of control since Grindelwald passed some of the power on to Voldemort. Even the Muggles are beginning to notice. There is a distinct feeling among The Guardians that we have strayed dangerously far from the path.

_You mean the path we're making up as we go along?_ Fox asked wryly.

_Yes, that one. _His eyes twinkled once more.

Fox didn't want to ask the question, but she felt she should. _Are you sure this isn't simply a grudge against Grindelwald?_

_Me? _Dumbledore looked innocent as a newborn babe. _I am hardly one for grudges._

_Perhaps. It's just that I wonder sometimes if too many of our decisions are dictated by politics._

_Politics?_

Fox turned her head away slightly, feeling a bit like a schoolchild interrupting class to correct the teacher. _It is not our job to pity the mortals. It is our job to direct them and guide them._

Dumbledore looked smug, as if he'd been expecting this question all along. _You mean to say that in the past, it has not been our job to pity them. But shall we remain so removed from their desires? We create the history, but once it has been created, it belongs to them, after all._

Fox stood. _This is dangerous talk. It was one thing when we drew back into the shadows, when we removed ourselves from mortal worship. It is quite another thing to throw up our hands and create the utopia they want. You know as well as I do that it wouldn't last, and that the damage it did to them – entirely out of kindness and pity on our parts – would undo everything they've achieved._

Dumbledore rose to join her, placing a hand on her shoulder. _I couldn't have put it better myself._

Fox gave up. The wars she wrought among the mortals were nothing compared to the wars raging within every individual Guardian mind. "Benesha flogo'mbast," she whispered aloud. _It never ceases._

Of course not. If it ceased, we would, too.

_So where does training Harry Potter fit in?_

They sat once more, getting down to business. _Grindelwald transferred his power in order to preserve some part of himself, so that his protégé could continue the work he began. He gave it freely, and because he did, it cannot be taken by force. If it is to be returned, it must also be given freely._

Grindelwald's work…the destruction of the Muggle world…but Voldemort only has a small portion of Grindelwald's power. How could he possibly continue in the footsteps of a Guardian?

_I don't believe Voldemort could ever actually achieve his goal, even if he killed Harry Potter and became the single bearer of Grindelwald's transference_. Dumbledore looked grim. _But he could certainly do a great deal of damage._

Fox nodded. _So Harry Potter must defeat Voldemort._

His blue eyes twinkled once more. _You know as well as I do that that is the general consensus._

_But The Cardinal…_ Fox faltered at saying his name in front of an outsider. In all her years in his service, Fox had never called The Cardinal anything but 'sir.' It seemed too casual to refer to him in front of Dumbledore this way, as if using his name should be accompanied by some sort of gesture, like the Catholics crossing themselves.

Snapping her concentration back, Fox continued. _He didn't go into the details of how Harry Potter is to transfer the power back to me._

Dumbledore rose from the sofa, walking casually over to the bookshelf he had been studying when she entered.

There is nothing quite like the relationship between a master and an apprentice. His voice in her head sounded casual, as if he were commenting on the weather.

_Bound by the relationship. Like Grindelwald and Voldemort. That's why you want me to teach him. The bond is the magic._

_The bond is trust, and that is the magic. You will have to earn his trust, and that isn't exactly the easiest thing to do right now._

Fox shrugged. _But he's my offspring in a way. He holds a portion of the power, and I hold the majority of it. The bond already exists._

_The bond exists, but it was given to him unknowingly, and it is colored by death, fear and hatred. His experience with his power has rarely been positive. The only aspect worth developing is the trust bestowed upon Voldemort by Grindelwald._

_So I need to appeal to the bond of trust,_ Fox thought glumly. _Why do I get the feeling I'm going to be spending the next few months giving him advice about girls?_

Dumbledore smiled and shrugged. _Whatever works. And frankly, I wouldn't be averse to the idea of him learning how to…what is the phrase?_ "Kick a little ass?" he asked aloud, and in English.

Fox held in her laughter. "That I can certainly teach him," she answered in kind.

Dumbledore leaned back, looking businesslike once more. _The transference itself involves little more than drawing a circle and saying a few words, but it is based upon some of the most fundamental magic known to us, the sort of magic that only Guardians can truly understand for what it is._

_Trust. So that's why I no longer feel as if our combined power is about to make Chernobyl look like a kitchen fire?_

The best solutions are the simplest ones.

_So are you entirely sure that you want the Guardian of War back to full strength?_ Fox asked lightly.__

_Merlin, yes. All of these genocidal turf wars are getting tedious. We were impressed with the job you did on the destruction of communism, however. Very little bloodshed for a Guardian in your position._

Fox shrugged. _It was a toppling tower; I merely gave it few nudges. And despite what the other Guardians think, I don't generally kill the mortals just for the fun of it._

I understand the necessity of war, so long as it is a war of necessity. We do hope to see some great things from you in the future. Destruction is long overdue in many ways.

Once my resources aren't quite as limited, I assure you that you'll like the plans I have in store.

The Institute for Ancient and Irrelevant Spells, Curses and Hexes

Near Muir Woods, California

It took Vivian a surprisingly long time to pack, considering she'd just moved into her current rooms when the divorce had come through all of four months ago. She'd gotten rid of most of the things she and David had collected over the years, not just out of spite, but also because quarters for single faculty members at the Institute were basically student rooms with a kitchen. Vivian wasn't entirely sure if it was taking so long because she was getting sentimental about leaving, or because she was dragging her feet as the idea of herself headlong into the middle of a war she'd already fought before.

Everything she touched seemed to evoke happy memories of her time here and depressing ones of her old life in Britain. Her diploma from the Institute – marking her transition from Apprentice to Master – made her remember the night of graduation, when their class had taken over the Main Hall, getting blitzed and lightly singed on Dragon's Breath Cocktails before storming the Dean's chamber and following the tradition of graduates by sealing her into her own closet with as many obscure locking and binding spells as they could imagine. The rumor at the Institute was that if it took the Dean less than twenty-four hours to get out, then the entire graduating class had their degrees revoked. Her class had come close to the record; it had taken the woman exactly six days, seventeen hours and forty-two minutes to escape.

Her old Auror badge was an entirely different matter. In any other circumstances, being an Auror would have been an honor, a privilege granted only to the few who managed to make it through the grueling training and testing process. When Vivian had graduated Hogwarts at the height of the war, incoming Aurors were taught disguises and the killing curse and tossed into the fray. Cannon fodder.

Only a handful of people from her recruiting class had lived to see the end of the war and those who did had very little stomach for what surviving had entailed. As much as she disliked the thing, Vivian had never been able to throw the badge away.

War, after all, is suited to the young. Not just the physical fighting, but the immediacy of it, the knowledge that you have to do what you want to do _today_, because there might not be a tomorrow. It's easy to look back from a stolid, boring, workaday adult life and romanticize that feeling. Vivian didn't want to do that. She didn't want to forget what it was really like.

_Well, apparently I have forgotten, because I seem to be dumb enough to go back_, Vivian sighed, putting her head in her hands.

"Oh, stop it," she admonished herself, tossing the stupid badge into an open box. "Magical contract, remember? Can't go back on your word, not even if you want to." Realizing the sun was coming up and she'd been at this all night, Vivian decided to simply take everything else in the room and shrink it, screw organization. She'd sort it all out when she finally got to Hogwarts.

Stupid to get all sentimental about this place, anyway. She was free and clear of any personal attachments, she'd fulfilled her required time as a resident Master. The only thing she had a justification for getting hung up about was David, and he was – to say the least – a lost cause. Odd that she'd only been with two men in her life. The first had been a werewolf; now the second one had gone off and become a vampire.

_I should really come with a disclaimer._

And of course the whole Remus thing was going to be uncomfortable. Vivian wrapped up her shrunken belongings in a kerchief and stuffed them into her pocket, shuffling off to the kitchen to brew some coffee. After all, when one's marriage goes south, where better to drown your sorrows than with Mr. Convenient And Single Ex-Lover? If the light was low and he squinted really hard, she might still resemble herself at twenty-one.

Presuming that he was standing a good distance away.

Vivian picked out some eggs from the basket for breakfast. _Perhaps if I suspended myself upside-down from the ceiling, everything would hang where it used to._ That thought was immediately followed by a rather nasty image of herself in that exact position, unable to see Remus because her breasts were obscuring the view.

Oh, who was she kidding anyway? She was at least fifteen pounds heavier now than she was then. Scowling, Vivian replaced the eggs and got out a tub of yogurt instead. The coffee gurgling to announce that it was finished brewing set her off again.

_I'm not going to have sex with Remus! What the hell am I thinking? I don't even _want_ to have sex with Remus, I just want to have sex with someone I don't have to give directions to. Not to mention the fact that one of his best friends just _died_ and the whole thing with us is so over and done with even the retelling has become a clich_Now at the point of snarling, Vivian threw the yogurt back into the icebox, promptly realized that she was leaving and that the yogurt wasn't coming with her, threw it into the trash and removed a handful of eggs once more with such force that one of them exploded in her hand.

Forcibly calming herself, Vivian made an omelet, adding a whole handful of cheese and feeling almost liberated. By the time she'd finished eating, cleaned up and thrown out all of the food in the place, it had reached a decent enough hour for her to say goodbye to the Dean.

The halls were empty as she walked down to the Dean's office. Most off the staff had left on summer vacation; only a few of them had stayed behind to teach and do research. But Dean Winchell was in her office, bright and early as always, and answered Vivian's knock with a far too enthusiastic, "Come in!" Enthusiasm tended to be the overriding personality characteristic of Dean Winchell. It was one of the most annoyingly popular traits among all Americans in the workplace, so far as Vivian could discern.

"I'm just getting ready to leave, and I wanted to say goodbye and thanks," Vivian explained, hoping to avoid a long conversation.

"Oh, Professor Lynes, we'll miss you a great deal. I hope you know how much we've enjoyed having you here at the Institute," the Dean intoned sadly.

Faced with emotion she wasn't sure was sincere, Vivian could literally _feel_ herself becoming more British. "Oh, _ahem_, yes, of course. I'll miss you all, too, I'm sure," she answered uncomfortably, willing the Dean not to hug her or do anything embarrassing.

Instead, the woman clucked and shook her head of gray curls. "I just want you to know that we wish you the best."

"Thank you, ma'am." There was a long pause. Vivian coughed. "Well, I'll be going then…" She backed out of the office slowly, trying to look forlorn. When she finally made it back to her own rooms, she let out a sigh of relief. The morning sun was rising over the ancient redwood forest and she allowed herself one last good look before taking some floo power out of the jar on the mantle, picking up her belongings and stepping into the fireplace.

"Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, London!" she cried, throwing down the powder.

Sorry for any confusion about the posting style and the summary. Unlike the story, the summary just gets written on the fly, without editing. So you can imagine what reading this would be like if it weren't for the betas, who I should probably send flowers to at this point.


	3. On the Mating Habits of Dragons

Chapter 3: On The Mating Habits of Dragons

Malfoy Manner

The Dark Lord was an absolute terror when he was in a bad mood. So far as Lucius was concerned, it wasn't much better when he was happy. When one has a snakelike face, smiling simply isn't flattering. Disturbing, yes. Flattering, no.

"So you've managed to obtain Castelar's daughter for me, Lucius. I am pleased with you."

"Yes, my lord. Thank you, my lord," Lucius said, bowing down to kiss Voldemort's robes, carefully using one hand to keep his hair from brushing the dirty floor of the dungeon torture chamber. Lucius had once asked his Master if he wouldn't prefer to converse in a proper salon, but Voldemort had simply turned that piercing red gaze on him and stated that the dungeon was fine. 'It reminds me of my childhood,' he'd said.

"Has she met young Draco yet?" Voldemort asked, with what looked almost like a mischievous glint in his eyes.

"No, my lord. She will meet him at supper tonight. I imagine my son will be able to take care of things from there."

"Good, very good. The time draws near for me to renew the bond with her. Wormtail informs me that the best time is next Thursday night."

"Wormtail?" Lucius asked distastefully, but not disrespectfully. "Are you entirely certain he is reading the charts correctly?"

"Yes, I am. He has always been quite gifted at astrology, though admittedly not at much else."

"Of course, my lord. I assure you that she will be prepared when the time comes."

"She doesn't need to be prepared," the Dark Lord said harshly. "Each of the children has turned out exactly as I intended them to. But the others have been raised to accept their fate, even if they are unaware of the nature of that fate. She has not. Her father should have raised her in such a manner, but Atreus was taken from us. This is why I want her to be the first, Lucius."

"Yes, my lord," he answered, even though a part of him wondered how Draco would react when his time came. During the weeks Lucius had been held for questioning, Draco had showed a muted yet noticeable rebelliousness. Narcissa had been terribly upset when Draco sent away the enormously expensive N.E.W.T. tutor Lucius had arranged for. It made Lucius uneasy. The boy would need to be taken in hand. With the right spin, Lucius felt he could convince Draco that his bond with the Dark Lord would be a benefit to him.

"You have spoken to her?"

"Yes, my lord."

"What are your impressions of her?"

Lucius thought for a moment before speaking. "She looks like Atreus and speaks like Reina."

"Hmm. Not a terribly appealing combination. I believe she would have been more fortunate if that were reversed."

_Wouldn't we all?_ "Don't worry, milord. She will serve your purposes well."

Voldemort smiled again, and again it was disturbing. "Of course she will. She was created to."

Little Whinging, Surrey

Harry didn't walk back to the Dursley's; he flew. He might have even skipped a little. Lucy Wexler was the prettiest girl in the universe and she liked him and she liked kissing him and she was going to meet him tomorrow and they were going to kiss some more and maybe she'd let him touch her breasts and her breasts were the prettiest breasts in the world and the world was perfect. When he bounced into number four, Dudley was watching television and Aunt Petunia was in the kitchen. Both of them jumped when he slammed the front door. Uncle Vernon wasn't home yet.

Harry raced up the stairs to his room, bursting with the need to tell somebody about what had happened, and yet somehow not wanting to tell anybody. He liked the idea of keeping Lucy Wexler all to himself.

The front door slammed once more, signaling Uncle Vernon's arrival, and Harry went downstairs for supper. He didn't even care that none of the Dursleys even looked in his general direction during the meal. He didn't care that he got a smaller portion than even Aunt Petunia. At this point, nothing could bring him down.

Harry didn't think he'd be able to sleep that night, but he must have done so fairly quickly, because it seemed like no time at all before he heard a frantic tapping on the window by his head. Opening his eyes blearily, Harry put on his glasses and looked out the window. Outlined by the grayness of pre-dawn was Errol, the Weasley's ancient owl. He looked about ready to collapse.

Quickly, Harry let the old owl in, untying the letter from his leg. He removed Hedwig's water from her cage so that the bird could refresh himself. Hedwig allowed this, though she ruffled her feathers a bit in annoyance. Errol drank a little bit of water, then passed out.

Still a bit groggy, Harry read the letter from Ron

_Harry,_

_So how are the Muggles treating you? After we left you at the train station, Mad-Eye went through a whole list of things that are legal to do to Muggles. He said he would send you the list if they needed to be kept in line, whatever that means._

_Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that we'll be at that dreary place we all were last summer for a few weeks while the Burrow gets more wards put up. My parents aren't letting me visit Fred and George. I also wanted to let you know that Lucius Malfoy was released. They said he was under Imperius, but dad said Malfoy probably had one of his cronies do it after he was arrested. It'll probably be all over the papers tomorrow._

_Mum and Dad said you couldn't come join us yet, but hopefully we'll be able to all meet up later this summer._

_Ron_

Harry sat back for a moment, processing all of this information. Well, if the Weasleys were putting more protection around the Burrow and heading off to Headquarters to hide, then they must be worried about something.

Maybe it was the fact that Lucius Malfoy had been released from prison, as if he'd done nothing, as if there hadn't been plenty of witnesses to his actions in the Department of Mysteries.

Harry felt the old familiar anger rise up in him again. Anger and powerlessness and frustration and a deep, burning desire to do something, anything, to fight…

Quickly, he shoved it down. The anger was stupid and useless and he wasn't in any position to help anybody right now.

Instead, he thought about almost touching Lucy's breasts. He thought about what it might be like to _really_ touch them. Maybe she'd let him tomorrow…which was to say, today. Maybe she'd even let him do more…

Harry's eyes flew open. He wasn't even entirely sure what doing more involved. Sure, he knew the mechanics of the job, but he had no idea how to go about doing them.

He suddenly wished there was someone he could write to for advice on sex. Harry had watched part of a dirty film once, when the Dursleys had been out and Dudley had broken into Uncle Vernon's video collection, but somehow he had a feeling that the movie hadn't exactly portrayed things in a realistic manner, and he hadn't been able to see how it ended anyway.

Harry had to admit that he knew next to nothing about sex.

It was beginning to dawn on him that people had sex, not just theoretically, but in actuality. His parents had had sex. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia had had sex. Harry shuddered at the thought. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had had sex a bunch of times. Time to move on to something else.

Harry sat up, rubbing his eyes under his glasses, suddenly very awake. You couldn't just go around having sex; the girl could get pregnant or you could catch something. Harry didn't think that Lucy had any diseases, but he couldn't be sure. She did seem a bit wild, and he had a feeling she had had sex before. It occurred to him with growing horror that he was going to need to buy condoms. Harry was going to have to walk into the chemist down the street and buy condoms.

No, he couldn't do that. There was no way he was going to ask Old Mr. Pendleton for some condoms. There was another chemist in East Whinging. If Harry left early enough, he could make it there and back by noon.

_Or maybe Lucy's on birth control_, Harry thought. That would solve everything, but he couldn't be sure if she was on it or not unless he asked her and he couldn't imagine asking her. A real juvenile delinquent would probably have condoms on him anyway, so he should probably go get some just in case.

But there had to be some other way. Surely wizards didn't use condoms, did they?

Trying to reign in his mind, Harry got a parchment and quill and sat down on his bed to write to Ron. Then he promptly changed his mind. Ron could wait for a response; this was urgent. He needed help, and the only people who could think of to ask were unfortunately…Fred and George. According to Ron, they'd gotten around quite a bit at Hogwarts.

Harry suddenly wished he had an older brother. An older brother who would give him advice and who wouldn't think it funny to give him a spell and tell him it would keep the girl from getting pregnant when really it would turn her into a lizard or something.

_Dear Fred and George,_

_How has your summer been?_

Harry stared at the note for a minute, trying to figure out a delicate way to describe the situation. Then he decided there wasn't one. Might as well get to the point. He crumpled up the note and started over.

_Fred and George,_

_I'm in danger of getting laid and need some pointers. Please advise._

_Harry_

Harry thought for a moment before adding on:

_P.S. Don't tell Ron just yet. I'll let him know as soon as Errol regains consciousness_.

After reading the letter over once more, Harry added another question:

_P.P.S. Purely out of curiosity, what do boys in the wizarding world use to make sure the girl doesn't get pregnant or anything?_

Finally satisfied, Harry rolled up the parchment and tied it with a string from his dresser. Hedwig, sensing that a message was about to be sent, began fidgeting as he tied the letter to her leg.

"Take this to Fred and George in Diagon Alley, okay?" The owl nipped his finger happily and flew out the window.

Harry sat back down on the bed and watched Hedwig until she was out of sight, thinking, _By this time tomorrow, I might be a man._

The Burrow

Predictably enough, the grand Weasley move to Headquarters the next morning was pure chaos and involved a great deal of shouting. Finally, Mrs. Weasley put her foot down.

"What is in your trunks right now at this precise moment is what you are taking with you," she ordered shrilly. "I don't care if you've forgotten to bring your own _head_; if either one of you makes a move towards those stairs again, I'll throw you bodily into the fireplace, so help me."

With that, she more or less frog-marched Ron into the fireplace, floating his trunk up so he could hold onto it. Looking sheepish, Ron grabbed a handful of powder and flooed out.

Seeing the look in her mother's eye, Ginny quickly leapt into the fireplace, lest she be shoved in. Holding onto her trunk with one hand and grabbing some floo powder with the other, she quickly made her escape.

Remus had apparently been expecting their arrival, because he took Ginny's trunk as soon as she arrived. Ron was already guiding his up the kitchen stairs to his room. Ginny said a quick hello to Remus and followed her brother, deciding that the best place to be right now was out of sight.

Molly arrived with a great deal of clanking, which meant that in the end, she had been unable to resist the urge to bring her own cookware.

"Merlin," she sighed. "Honestly, I thought it was bad when we were shuttling five of them off at a time to Hogwarts. There are only two of them now, and I think they feel some sort of duty to make up for the rest."

"You know, Molly, there are pots and pans here already. You didn't need to bring your own," Remus answered, sounding amused.

"I know, but I don't think they like me very much. Last time they burned the potatoes…"

That was all Ginny heard before reaching the entrance hall. She and Ron tiptoed carefully past the portrait of Mrs. Black and up the stairs, laying claim to the rooms they'd slept in last summer. Even though she didn't have anything better to do, Ginny still felt too lazy to unpack. It seemed stupid, really. She'd only just packed in the first place a few hours ago.

Instead, she walked up to Ron's room, where he, too, seemed disinclined to perform any physical activity.

"Hey, Gin," he greeted her.

"Hey, Ron," she responded, throwing herself dramatically on the second bed. "We've been here five minutes, and I'm bored already. It's no fun without anyone else around."

"Well, Charlie's coming for dinner," Ron said, yawning a bit.

"Oh, really?" Charlie had always been her favorite brother. Maybe it was because she didn't see him very often. Or maybe it was because he was the only brother who didn't still feel that the only present she could possibly want for Christmas or her birthday was yet another stuffed animal. Her room at the Burrow looked like a bloody wildlife preserve.

"Yeah. He's coming for the meeting."

"You mean the meeting we're not invited to attend?"

"Yes. Odd that we're old enough to fight Death Eaters, but not old enough to know what they're up to."

"Provided that mum and dad assume that there's no need to soundproof the door if Fred and George are in the meeting."

"Hmm," Ron answered, and both of them stared off into space, lost in their own thoughts. Ginny found herself once again thinking about Draco Malfoy. He probably knew what the Death Eaters were up to. He might even be working for them now. _Arrgh, knock it off with the creepy obsession thing already, will you?_

"Gin?" Ron asked suddenly.

"Yeah?" Ginny asked distractedly.

"What do you think about Harry?"

Ginny turned on her side to face him, puzzled. "What do you mean?"

"I mean…you know…do you still like him?"

"I like him fine. He's a stand-up guy."

"No, I mean do you still _like_ him?"

"No, I don't."

"Why not?"

"I don't know, really. I just don't anymore." In truth, it was just too complicated to explain. In some part, Ginny felt she'd held on to her Harry Potter obsession because it had pre-dated Tom Riddle and was therefore one of the few things in her life that had retained a sort of innocence. Plus, he had saved her life, and what girl could resist the sort of feelings that went with an act like that? And yet at some point, all of that had begun to seem very silly and childish.

Being in awe of somebody was hardly a practical basis for a romantic relationship with that person, and in truth, Ginny wasn't even sure she was attracted to Harry in a physical way. She was amazed by him, she was indebted to him, and perhaps because of that, he was not a figure of sexual desire for her.

"So you like Dean, though?" Ron persisted.

"I liked Dean while it lasted. I broke up with him a couple days ago."

"You did? Merlin, that's the shortest relationship in the history of Hogwarts."

"Ron," Ginny said patiently, "just because you first heard about Dean and I on the train ride home doesn't mean the relationship began on the train ride home."

"Oh. How long were you together, then?"

"A few weeks."

"A few _weeks_?!" Ron sounded appalled. "How is it that you were going out with a guy in my dormitory for weeks and I didn't know about it?"

"Well, it's not as if we strolled through the halls holding hands or mooned at each other over breakfast, Ron."

"What _did_ you do, then?"

"We…umm…we talked a lot." Ginny could feel a blush spreading up her face and quickly leapt up from the bed. "We should really get to unpacking, don't you think?"

"I'll kill him," Ron said firmly. "Sleeping in the same room as me while he's…"

"Stop it, Ron," Ginny ordered, turning around and putting her hands on her hips. "Dean didn't do anything I didn't want him to do."

"Ginny!" Ron choked out, sitting straight up from the bed, his face quickly turning the color of a ripe plum.

Ginny spoke calmly and deliberately. "Ronald Weasley, in my fifteen years on this planet, I have survived seven older brothers who have regularly knocked me down flights of stairs, locked me in trunks, transformed me into domesticated animals and occasionally attached extra limbs to my body. I have fought Death Eaters. I have slaughtered chickens and written nasty messages on the walls of Hogwarts in the service of an evil diary. I assure you that I am quite capable of handling a simple teenage boy."

Feeling rather proud of herself for reducing Ron to a sputtering pile of overprotective mush, Ginny proceeded to her room to unpack. Ron knocked on her door a bit later, but she ignored him and spent the rest of the day working on her summer homework.

When she finally went down to the kitchen for dinner, Ginny found not only Charlie, but also Mundungus Fletcher. Her mother did not look happy about this addition.

Ron was still shooting her death glances, and Ginny began to get a sinking sensation in her stomach. Ron, when provoked, had a tendency to air his grievances in front of as many people as he could find who might take his side in the argument, but he wouldn't bring it up in front of Remus and Mundungus Fletcher.

Would he?

She was beginning to feel that it would have been a much better idea to just keep her big mouth shut about Dean Thomas.

"Food smells delicious, Molly," Mundungus commented as he dug into some shepherd's pie.

Her mother sent him a smile that looked more like a grimace.

"So, dad, how have things been at work?" Charlie asked smoothly, carefully steering the conversation from anything Mundungus had stolen recently.

As dinner began drawing to a close without a scene courtesy of Ron, Ginny began to relax a bit. Maybe her brother had grown up. Maybe he had learned some restraint. She sat back and listened to Charlie talk about the new shipment of dragons they'd gotten in last week.

"They're settling into the colony nicely, which is always difficult, because dragons tend to be suspicious of new faces. It didn't help that some of the new females are in heat." Charlie chuckled, shaking his head. "We had to quarantine them before they killed somebody."

Ron's lips pressed together, and Ginny knew it was coming.

"Ron," she said warningly, hoping to head him off, hoping against hope that he wasn't about to do this in front of _Mundungus_, for Merlin's sake.

No such luck.

"Speaking of being in heat," he said tightly, his voice pitched much higher than usual, "your daughter has been doing…_things_."

"Ron, shut up," Ginny hissed. "We'll talk about it later."

"Things?" Arthur asked, innocently curious. "What sorts of things?"

"Things with _boys_!" Ron's voice echoed through the kitchen. The silence following this little announcement was broken only by the thud of Ginny's head hitting the table.

Several times.

"Oh, dear," Molly breathed.

Remus and Charlie both tried to pass laughter off as coughing. Ginny braced herself, knowing that she was most likely going to be dragged upstairs by her mother so that she could be subjected to a mutually embarrassing and euphemism-filled lecture on sex.__

Instead, with the sort of timing Ginny didn't think existed in the real world, flames erupted in the fireplace, signaling an arrival via floo. New arrivals meant they were probably members of the Order, which meant her mother would be busy, which meant that Ginny would be saved the sex talk.

No, she'd only have to live with the horrible, prickly humiliation of having her romantic exploits (which hadn't even proceeded further than some heavy petting anyway) paraded in front of her parents and assorted members of the Order, one of whom happened to be her ex-professor.

She may have been saved by the floo arrival, but Ron had not been.

He sent her defiant glare. Ginny smiled back innocently. _Ronald Weasley_, Ginny decided firmly, _you are a dead man._

Malfoy Manner

After Lucius locked her in, Thera sat on the bed for a while, trying to decide what to do. Since no other means of entertainment presented themselves, she decided to snoop around. It seemed like a rational thing to do in the situation, and she knew very well that her grip on rationality right now was tenuous, at best.

The bedside table nearest the window yielded a pair of pink silk panties. They looked like they might fit, but Thera couldn't tell whether they'd been worn or not, so she decided to leave them. The bedside table closest to the door contained three sickles and a book entitled _Familius Malfoy_. Tossing it on the bed for a further look later, Thera proceeded to the wardrobe.

The robes inside smelled musty and had probably gone out of style years ago. One set had a decidedly unflattering butterfly collar. Imagining Lucius wearing it lightened her mood considerably. Stuffed into a corner was a very disturbing array of leather straps with a codpiece attached. Thera couldn't for the life of her figure out how one would actually go about putting it on, but she liked imagining its uses nonetheless.

The bathroom was posh, with marble countertops and silver amenities. A small chamber off to the right contained a toilet – also sterling silver, for reasons that went against any concept of comfort, in Thera's mind – as well as a large tub. However, there was nothing disgusting or disturbing in the bathroom so far as she could tell. No wart cream, no herpes medication, no vibrator lurking under the sink.

Nothing.

Feeling a bit disheartened, Thera sat down on the bed and picked up _Familius Malfoy_. She flipped around, finding it to be a combination of a family tree and a written history of the Malfoy family. Not entirely surprising, and not entirely interesting, either. Of course, it didn't exactly have a great deal of competition in the 'interesting' department.

Thera didn't know how long she'd been killing time when she heard footsteps outside the door. Tossing the book aside, she stood up and waited for her visitor to enter. Intincts told her to hide behind the door and knock them out with the bedside lamp, but that didn't seem very wise. Assuming she managed to actually get out of the house – which was a long shot – she'd have no wand and eighteen Canadian dollars, which wasn't going to get her very far in the middle of nowhere. In Britain.

Predictably, it was Lucius, carrying a set of maroon dress robes. He was moving briskly, his white-blonde hair trailing behind him like a banner. "Dinner will commence in fifteen minutes. Be dressed and prepared," he ordered, tossing the robes onto the bed. Seeing _Familius Malfoy_, he paused. "Reading up on the family history?" He looked up at her, the dying candlelight illuminating his hair with gold, making it appear almost as a halo around his head. It would be a rather misplaced halo.

"My mother told me some of it, though I wasn't aware that our common ancestor was named Uranus." She pronounced it 'Your Anus.'

"It's a family name, and the name is pronounced 'Urine Us,'" Lucius said mildly.

"Oh," Thera replied, fighting to keep a straight face. "That's much better. Good, solid Roman name."

"He achieved a great many things."

"I'm sure he did. I would imagine he was quite a guy."

"Yes," Lucius replied, somehow drawing the word out to three syllables. "My son will collect you in fifteen minutes to escort you to dinner." With that, he whipped around and was gone in a silver-gold swish of hair.

Growing increasingly excited at the idea of food – and considering her surroundings, really _good_ food – Thera quickly changed into the maroon robes. They were too long to the point where they dragged on the floor and the ends of the sleeves covered her hands.

"Oh, that's great," she muttered, cursing her shortness yet again. She didn't even have a wand to shorten them. Well, if they were going to give her robes that didn't fit, then she was at least going to enjoy the look on Lucius' face when she walked in.

A few minutes later, she heard the bolt turn in the door again. It swung open to reveal a boy about her age, who could only be the spawn of Lucius Malfoy. He was obviously his daddy's little clone, since he wore the same type of robes and had the same 'has something gone rotten in here?' look on his face. His hair – disappointingly enough – was shorter and slicked back so meticulously that he appeared to be applying for a position with the Hitler Youth.

Even so, he was beautiful in a way that should be illegal. Beautiful in a way that poets used to write odes about. Beautiful in an 'I'm not trying at all to be this gorgeous and don't you just hate me for it' sort of way.

It was actually quite sickening.

He gave her a once over, smirking a bit. "I don't know who gave you those robes, but I don't think they like you very much."

Thera stood her ground, knowing very well that she looked like a little girl who had just raided mommy's closet. "Your father gave them to me. I imagine you can draw your own conclusions."

He crossed his arms, raising one eyebrow disdainfully. Thera had never been able to do that, and the fact that he could made her hate him just a little bit more.

"Well, you can't go down there looking like that," he informed her.

"I agree completely. I was thinking perhaps I could tease my hair and wear that black leather contraption in the wardrobe."

His mouth quirked slightly. "I wouldn't recommend it. It's rather chilly in the dining room."

"Hmm. Well, if you have a pair of scissors, I'd find it immensely satisfying to perform a few alterations on this thing."

He waved a casual hand. "That's not necessary." Drawing a wand out of his robes, he said a few words. Immediately, the sleeves and the hem shortened and the robes contracted. They contracted to the point where they were skintight.

"Very funny," Thera said dryly. What meager assets she had were very obviously on display.

Smirking again, Lucius Junior waved his wand, letting the robes out a bit. "You know," he said conversationally, "most people find it useful to wear other clothes underneath their robes. You might want to try it."

Thera indicated her jeans and sweatshirt, folded on the bed.

"I see. Never mind then." His eyes suddenly fell on her sneakers and he frowned. Waving his wand once more, they became a set of black heels.

Tottering a bit at her sudden change in altitude, Thera glared at him. "Am I ready for the ball now, fairy godmother?"

He sighed and shook his head a bit. "Well, your hair is atrocious and you could do with a bit of makeup, but on the whole you're far less offensive then when I found you." He held out his arm, which Thera took.

"With that kind of charm on your side, you must have the girls falling at your feet."

He simply shrugged, and they walked along for a bit in silence. Thera marveled at the Malfoy idea of a cozy home environment. It seemed to center around brooding paintings, limited light and unnecessarily long wood-paneled hallways. Thera wondered how best to get information out of this kid.

"So what's your name?" she asked, trying to sound friendly.

"Draco."

"Draco," Thera said slowly, viciously repressing a desire to find that hilarious. "How…umm…how subtle." At least it wasn't Uranus.

"What's yours?" he asked, not sounding particularly interested.

"Thera."

"Hm." There was another long silence as they turned a corner and proceeded down yet another dreadfully long corridor. Thera suddenly found it disturbing that Draco's father could tell him to go release the prisoner on the second floor and escort her to dinner without Draco thinking that this was in any way an odd request.

_Focus_, she ordered herself. _Talk to him. See if you can find out anything._

"We're cousins, actually," she informed him. "Of a sort."

"Oh? Truly?" He sounded bored. This wasn't going well.

"Yes. So do you even know why I'm here?" She tried to make it sound as if she knew already and was just curious as to whether or not he did.

"No." Still bored.

Draco obviously wasn't terribly interested in talking, and Thera frankly had no further use for him if he didn't have any information, so they walked the rest of the way in silence.

Their destination was one of those gigantic and intimidating dining rooms with a monstrous (and ugly) oak table that could have comfortably seated the entire Royal Navy. Lucius was already seated at the head of the table. To his right sat a blonde trophy wife who watched the two of them take their seats with the slightly glazed look of someone addicted to prescription drugs.

Thera and Draco sat across from his mother, who squinted at Thera for a moment, as if trying to place her.

"She does look like Atreus," the woman said to Lucius in a surprisingly lucid voice. "Pity." Her eyes turned back to Thera once more. "Those robes are at least three years out of style, Lucius. Why didn't you give her one of my sets from last season?"

"I considered myself lucky to get her to wear witch's robes at all, considering her proclivity for Muggle clothing," Lucius answered, a hand absently stroking a section of hair that had fallen forward over his shoulder. Then he held the section in front of his face and frowned a bit, as if searching for split ends.

Thera focused her gaze on her plate, knowing at that moment that this day couldn't possibly get any weirder.

And then, predictably, it did.

Draco Malfoy put his hand on her leg.

Thera snapped her head up to look at him, but he was staring intently at his father, occasionally nodding. Blinking, Thera tried to tune into the conversation. Lucius was talking about the progress of his gardens.

"The Man-Eating Scaraptulas are coming along nicely, though. I imagine they'll be fully grown by the end of the summer."

"They'll be a nice addition," Mrs. Malfoy murmured.

"It's supposed to be a rather wet summer, though," Draco commented, inching his hand a bit farther up her thigh. "That should probably be accounted for."

"Yes, I've instructed the gardeners to monitor the watering schedule accordingly," Lucius answered.

Thera had exactly one thought bouncing around her head, and it was: _Dear God in Heaven, I'm surrounded by lunatics._

"Well, I imagine we're ready for the soup," Lucius said at last. Immediately, bowls of vichyssoise appeared. Soup being a one-handed affair, Draco was able to inch his other hand a bit farther up her thigh, squeezing gently.

Surreptitiously, Thera picked up her salad fork. Taking a sip of soup to hide the movement, she jabbed it into Draco's hand.

He immediately snatched it back, scowling at her. Thera sent him a 'who, me?' glance before returning to her soup. Draco managed to keep his hands to himself for the rest of the meal.

The food, however, was well worth a bit of manhandling and a set of relatives only Edgar Allen Poe could love. It might have even been worth the whole kidnapping thing. Steak tartare, creamed spinach, and some roasted duck that practically dripped from the bones, which Thera had to restrain herself from picking up and sucking on. There was chocolate mousse for dessert, as well as an array of fruit and cheeses.

Thera marveled at the fact that evil people always seem to eat so much better than regular people.

When dinner was finished, Draco escorted her back to her room.

"What sort of name is Thera anyway?" he asked. Thera was immediately put on guard by his lack of boredom in her presence. She had not forgotten the hand on the leg incident at dinner.

"Thera was the name of the volcano that destroyed Atlantis."

"I see," he said slowly. "So your parents named you after a natural disaster?"

"Yes. And your parents named you after a reptile."

"A very powerful and _magical_ reptile," he pointed out smugly.

"And yet, in the end, still a reptile."

"I think I liked you better when you were trying to pry information out of me," he observed.

"I didn't think you liked me much then."

"I didn't, actually. I'm just saying that I like you even less now."

Thera rolled her eyes. "As painful as that is, I imagine I'll eventually be able to pick up the pieces of my shattered ego and move on."

"I do find you attractive, though," he mused, either ignoring or entirely missing the sarcasm. "I'm not sure why."

"Hormones," Thera said shortly.

"Perhaps. I'm simply saying that I wouldn't be averse to having sex with you."

What he said wasn't really that funny, but apparently it was the last straw. Thera's tenuous grip on rationality finally slipped, and she was lost in a wave of hysterical laughter. At first, Draco didn't seem to know what to make of her. When she finally got to the point where it was hard to stand up, he simply gripped her arm harder and kept dragging her down the hall.

"Never mind," he said stiffly. "I take it back."

Thera laughed harder, fighting for breath, hanging on to him in order to keep from sinking into a heap of insanity. She imagined that straight jackets had been invented specifically for moments like these. Who knew that a complete mental breakdown could be so damn funny?

The more Thera tried to control the laughter, the more it grew out of control. She laughed until tears ran down her face and she gave herself the hiccups. Everything became hilarious. The fact that Draco apparently put on cologne to have dinner with his parents was hilarious. When they reached her room, Thera decided that her status as the most well-taken-care-of prisoner in history was hilarious.

Thera half-expected Draco to just toss her into the room, lock the door and be rid of her. Instead he wrestled her over to the bed, sat her down, gave her an understandably freaked out look and backed slowly out of the room. Thera found this more hilarious than anything else.

Thera flopped backward on the bed and just gave over. It lasted a surprisingly long time. The laughter ebbed slowly, leaving in its wake a tired numbness. Once the hiccups had become less frequent, Thera wiped her face on the back of her sleeve.

"My mother is dead," she said out loud. She tried to wrap her mind around the thought, tried to draw it in, to test it out and see what it felt like. It didn't work. Her mind was too busy worrying about being trapped in a gothic horror novel to feel or think about anything else.

She should probably get up and brush her teeth and wash her face and use the toilet. Then she should turn off the bedside lamps and maybe set a trap for the next person to come in – a chamber pot full of something nasty that would fall on their head when they opened the door or something. Thera smiled a little at the thought of what dear Cousin Lucius' gleaming locks would look like afterwards.

She planned on doing all of these things, but drowsiness overtook her before she could. And so Thera fell asleep, fully dressed and still occasionally hiccuping.

The Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix

Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, London

It is one thing to travel across the country into another time zone. It is quite another thing to launch oneself willy-nilly across the globe. When Vivian finished spinning and stepped shakily out of the fireplace at Grimmauld Place, she found herself facing half a dozen rather surprised people. They were eating supper.

There was a few moments' silence before a voice sounded from the far end of the table. It was Remus. _Shit_.

"Vivian?" he asked, grinning broadly as he rose from the table.

She had prepared herself for this. Vivian had spent every moment of the past year knowing very well that she would be coming face-to-face with Remus Lupin in the very near future and that she would be forced to produce more than terse, businesslike replies. She had worked out countless cold-shoulder brush-offs and cheerfully casual greetings. Characteristically, once she actually found herself in the moment, she just stood there and gaped like an idiot. It wasn't until he had swept her up in an annoyingly brotherly hug that she regained her wits.

"Remus," she greeted him, the practiced chill in her voice ruined by the fact that her feet were not touching the ground and her face was buried in his chest.

Finally, he put her down and held her out at arm's length. Vivian found herself shocked by how the years had changed him. His hair was almost completely gray and his face looked haggard and tired.

But his hands were the same, and so were his eyes. Remus had never been able to hide his emotions, and she could see the heat in those gray eyes as he looked at her. For what it was worth, he still wanted her. It was not necessarily heartwarming, but at least it was an ego boost.

"You look unbelievable," he said. Their eyes locked for the briefest moment before she dropped her gaze. _Tell him he's an asshole! Tell him you're available!_ _Stop it! _She refused to turn back into the silly, giggling teenaged airhead who had fallen for this schmuck.

So she smiled in a half-hearted sort of way, said "Thank you" politely and turned to see who else was in the room.

In the history of snubs, she figured it landed somewhere in the vicinity of 'lame,' though it did manage to knock him off kilter for a moment. There was an uncomfortable silence before Molly and Arthur Weasley stepped forward, looking healthy and chubby and middle-aged, as well they should.

She hugged them both, viciously pushing down a surge of jealousy at two people with such a happy marriage and a passel of red-headed children who were promptly lined up for introductions. It was shocking to come face to face with entirely grown individuals that one remembered quite clearly as toddlers. Charlie had grown out of his gawky stage, Ron looked disturbingly like Arthur as a young man and Ginny had just been an infant the last Vivian remembered.

It made her feel really, really old.

Fortunately, the feeling didn't last very long, as she was nearly bowled over by Mundungus Fletcher.

"Viv, honey!" he practically squealed. "Still got those spellbooks I found you?"

She assured him that she did, once again reminding herself that their origins were none of her business and that one shouldn't ask too many questions about free spellbooks. Mundungus seemed like the last person to greet, and yet everyone still seemed to be standing there, looking at the fireplace expectantly.

With a dawning sense of horror, Vivian realized that they were waiting for David. _Oh, dear, I really should have told Dumbledore about that,_ she thought, wincing.

"Umm, I'm the only one arriving," she said, smiling wanly.

There was a long and exquisitely painful pause as everyone in the room stared at her in incomprehension.

"Oh, I see," Molly finally said, in that understanding tone that told Vivian that Molly would see too it that David's name was not spoken by any member of her family. _Of course, the rest of the Order is going to be expecting David, too, aren't they? Oh, what a nightmare._ Vivian felt that at the moment, the best way to deal with this uncomfortable situation was to put to use her tried and true method for dissolving uncomfortable situations: fleeing as if her arse were on fire.

"Why don't you show me to my room?" she asked Remus brightly, taking his arm and trying to drag him out of the room without appearing as if she were actually trying to drag him out of the room.

Once they reached the front hallway, Vivian abruptly let go of his arm, realizing that she actually had no idea where she was going. Shaking his head, he motioned her up the stairs and she followed him until they reached the end of the third floor hallway.

"This one's yours," he said, opening the door.

"Oh," Vivian said, taken aback. "It's…it's lovely." It was actually ugly and dark and utterly dreadful. Even the paintings looked depressed.

"Sirius' mother did have a _way_ with decorating, didn't she?" Remus asked, smiling.

"Oddly enough, I think a great many aspects of Sirius' personality suddenly make sense to me now," Vivian said, taking her shrunken belongings out of her pockets and tossing them on the bed.

"Yes, I suppose," Remus replied, shoving his hands into his pockets and suddenly looking adorable and uncertain and exactly the way he had when she'd first met him. Vivian blinked and called it a trick of the light. "He hated this place."

Her eyes turned to study him as she answered. "I suppose anybody in their right mind would, wouldn't they?"

He just nodded and looked at the floor.

"I'm so sorry, Remus," she said softly. It seemed like a stupid thing to say, but then all of the wise and understanding and profound things she'd had to say on the subject had been used up years and years ago, when he'd lost his three best friends in one day. Frankly, even then, they'd sounded trite. "How are you?"

"Oh, you know me," he said bracingly, running a hand through his hair. "I'll be fine. I'm just sorry you won't be able to give him the big, dramatic apology I know you were planning."

Vivian sniffed. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Please, from the moment I told you Sirius was innocent, you've been falling all over yourself with contrition. You sent him those awful cookies at Christmas…"

"My cookies were awful?" Vivian asked faintly.

"Yes, they were, but that's not the point. The point is that you feel all guilty for his arrest by ex-Auror association or whatever your justification is for feeling guilty, and I simply feel the need to assure you that he bore you no ill will," Remus said firmly.

"Really?"

"Well," he qualified, "he bore you no ill will about the arrest and being sent to Azkaban without a trial. He did, however, still bear a grudge about you ratting him out to McGonagall for trying to sneak into the Ravenclaw common room."

"Oh, yes, I remember that. He was trying to meet with Merlania Grossenpfeffer. Boy, was _she_ a floozie. Why did Sirius always date floozies?"

"Because they put out," Remus answered, as if this should have been obvious.

She laughed hoarsely. "Here, I have an idea. I'll apologize to you instead."

Remus looked surprised. "To me? For what?"

She stepped forward a few feet. "Just pretend to be Sirius for a moment, okay?"

He gave her his patented 'I'm only doing this to humor you' look before taking a deep breath and slapping a sarcastic and brooding expression on his face that was so much like Sirius, she started giggling.

"If that's your apology, it stinks."

"I'm sorry," she choked out. "It's just that you look just like him…" Vivian pressed her lips together and made herself sober up.

"Sirius," she began.

"Yes?" he answered, sounding convincingly rude. Vivian fought back another round of giggles.

"When you were brought in, you were laughing like a madman. You wouldn't even answer any questions, and we all…" Well, they'd all thought he gone 'round the bend, actually. Vivian coughed. "We all jumped to a lot of conclusions, and we shouldn't have."

Remus eyed her warily, then nodded. It was getting a lot easier to imagine him as Sirius. She started to fidget a little under his gaze.

"We were all just doing what we were trained to do and we thought everything would be sorted out at the trial. We didn't know they'd put you away without a trial. You didn't behave like an innocent man, but I should have at least made sure that you were treated fairly. You deserved that much, and I didn't give it to you. None of us did…" She faltered a bit.

"Go on," Remus said softly.

"I'm sorry," she said, gulping.

"I forgive you," he said, and Vivian smiled at him. Remus chuckled and stepped forward to draw her into a hug.

"Do you feel any better?"

She nodded.

"You know, he forgave me, too. We even hugged, in a manly sort of way."

Vivian laughed and squeezed him tighter.

Remus stepped back suddenly, looking embarrassed. "Sorry, I know I probably shouldn't…" he stopped mid-sentence. "Speaking of David, I believe the question of the hour is: where is he?"

Vivian groaned. She was certainly not up to recounting the whole ugly breakup with David right now. "He's not coming. He doesn't even know I'm here."

"He doesn't? What did you tell him you were doing?"

"I didn't tell him anything."

He continued to look confused.

"We…well, we're divorced. Just came through a few months ago. It's a long boring story, and it's really not worth getting into it right now."

Remus sat down on the bed, looking shocked. "Divorced? What happened? I thought you guys…I mean…it wasn't about this, was it? About coming back and rejoining the Order?" he asked in a horrified voice.

"It had nothing to do with any of that. It all just wasn't working out. Let's go back downstairs and get ready for the meeting."

Remus nodded, rising from the bed. "But you'll tell me later, right?" he asked, chucking her under the chin.

Vivian sighed heavily. "Yes, I'll tell you later."

By the time they reached the kitchen, the children had been sent upstairs and the adults were preparing for a meeting of the Order. Vivian whipped up a quick salad and ate it as she bustled around after Molly, trying to be useful.

"I'm sorry to hurry you along," the older woman apologized, "but you have no idea how hard it is to get everyone together at the same time. We have to take what we can get."

"It's alright," Vivian assured her between bites.

"That's all you're eating?" Molly asked sharply, making Vivian feel like a scolded child. "A salad?"

Vivian shrugged. "I've been in California for fourteen years. All _anyone_ eats there is salad."

"You're too skinny," Molly returned, shaking her head and sitting at the table. Vivian looked down at herself and secretly disagreed. The moment was shattered by a loud crash from upstairs, followed by horrible and unearthly shrieking.

Molly put her head in her hands, Vivian covered her ears and Charlie stood up quickly from the table. "That'll be Tonks, then," he muttered, jogging out of the room.

"Dare I ask what the hell that is?" Vivian finally managed to shout above the din.

"Portrait of Sirius' mum in the front hallway," Mundungus bellowed in response. "Darn old woman bewitched it to screech at everybody."

"Well take it down, then!"

"We can't get it off the wall!" Molly shouted in response. The old woman finally shut up and everybody visibly relaxed. "She put some sort of permanent sticking charm on it."

Vivian thought quickly. "You're sure it's a charm?"

"Severus said it wasn't a potion, but we can't move the thing," Remus explained.

"You can't move it at all, or you can move it a little bit and then it jumps right back into place?" Vivian asked thoughtfully.

"We can't move it at all," Remus replied, beginning to see where this was going.

"And you can't remove the portrait from the frame, right?"

"No, we can't."

Vivian was tapping her fingers on the table. "Have you tried to cut the portrait?"

"Out of the frame? Of course we have," Molly answered.

"No, I mean have you tried to slice up the portrait, get it wet, deface it or anything?"

Molly, Mundungus, Arthur and Remus all looked at each other and shrugged.

"Sirius tried to cut it once…" Remus began.

"And it attacked him," Vivian finished, then continued, "Not like a portrait, but like an actual person, right? Spitting at him and the like?"

Remus nodded and there was a moment of silence as Vivian stared off into space, muttering. Then the first wave of the Order of the Phoenix burst into the kitchen.

"'Lo all," Tonks greeted them cheerfully, her hair – for the moment – long and straight and an oddly calming sky blue. Minerva McGonagall, Severus Snape and Kingsley Shacklebolt entered behind her, followed by a lightly panting Charlie Weasley. "Sorry about the upset in the hallway."

Five people immediately shushed her.

At that moment, Vivian picked up the fork she'd been using to eat her salad and conjured up a glass of water as she strode purposefully out of the room, her wand clenched in her teeth. The new arrivals watched her leave, exchanging puzzled glances.

"Was that Vivian Wellbourne?" Professor McGonagall asked the room in general.

"She's Vivian Lynes now, Minerva," Molly reminded her. "Or at least, I think she is."

McGonagall blinked at her. "I'm sorry?"

"She married David Lynes. Ravenclaw, too, if I remember," Arthur chimed in. "He does some sort of Muggle-Wizard currency exchange business."

"Only he didn't come with her, and mother's forbidden us to say anything about it to her," Charlie supplied helpfully.

"Oh, I see," McGonagall answered, pursing her lips.

"Well, why did she just walk out of here with a fork and a glass of water?" Tonks asked.

Remus grinned. "I think she's going to try and remove Mrs. Black from the wall."

Everyone in the room looked at him in horror. The shrieking renewed from the front hallway and there was a general rush for the door. Molly Weasley muttered angrily about trying to raise children in such an environment.

Due to the geography of the kitchen and the narrowness of the stairs, Tonks was at the head of the group moving toward the front hallway, followed immediately by Severus Snape. When the shrieking was abruptly cut off, she stopped.

Seven people immediately plowed into her in a tangle of arms and legs. The force of the collision was enough to change the color of Tonks' hair to purple with white polka-dots. Snape frantically tried to steady himself by grabbing onto Tonks' robes, but a loud and heavy-sounding thud sent her shooting forward again, wand at the ready.

Unfortunately enough for the rest of the people on the stairs, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Everyone behind Tonks began falling backward. Snape, and all the others behind him tumbled down the stairs in what would have been an injurious pileup had Arthur Weasley not quickly summoned up a cushioning charm.

Instead, fingers poked eyes, knees collided with chins and McGonagall let out a stream of curses that would have made Molly Weasley gasp had Mundungus Fletcher not been sitting atop her.

"That child is a menace!" McGonagall cried, bun askew, rubbing the top of her head where it had come into violent contact with Remus' shinbone.

This declaration was followed by Tonks whooping from the front hallway. "Cor, she's done it! The old woman is no more!"

Snape pulled his robes from over his head and cringed instinctively, waiting for the epithets to begin again. Instead, there was silence.

"I don't believe it," he breathed, thoroughly impressed for exactly the third time in his life.

Mundungus sighed happily. "I don't know what she did to put a stopper in that old bag, but I could kiss her for it."

The group made a slow, painful extrication from each other before starting back up the stairs warily. In the front hallway, they found the silent portrait of Mrs. Black lying on the floor and Tonks staring in awe at Vivian, who was cradling her left hand.

"The evil old thing bit me," she growled, shaking the offended hand at them. The Order of the Phoenix simply stared at the fallen portrait in astonishment, rubbing various sore areas of their bodies.

That was how the rest of the Order found them when they walked in.

"Ah," Dumbledore said as he walked in, followed by a whole host of Order members, including Dedalus Diggle, two more redheads that had to be the Weasley twins, and Vivian's old partner, Mad Eye Moody. "I see someone has managed to outsmart Mrs. Black." He ambled into the corridor as everyone's attention snapped toward him; many mouths were still open in shock. "I must say it will be nice to be able to make noise in the front hallway without having my beard insulted."

Vivian, still gritting her teeth about being foolish enough to let her hand stray into the path of a mad painting, simply squinted at him before turning to the blue-haired young woman next to her.

"So you're Tonks, I take it?" she asked.

"Guilty as charged," the girl grinned. "Your hand actually doesn't look too bad. Let Molly have a look and I think you'll be alright."

Vivian smiled at her before moving off to greet the new arrivals.

"Professor Dumbledore, it's wonderful to see you again," she said, shaking his hand warmly.

"I cannot thank you enough for taking the Defense Against the Dark Arts position," he replied, his blue eyes sparkling. "We were not unduly impressed with the Ministry's selection last year."

"Yes, The Grand Inquisitor."

"Oddly enough" Dumbledore mused, "I have yet to meet a student who is terribly upset about her departure."

Vivian turned and shook Moody's hand next.

"I heard a half-crazed Death Eater locked you up in your own trunk for nine months, Mad Eye," she accused him, shaking her head. "Don't tell me you went to a head doctor and fixed that good old paranoia of yours."

"I'd watch it if I were you," Moody grunted, his magical eye still studying the portrait of Mrs. Black as if it were going to come after him with a knife. "I've got stories about Little Miss Rookie Auror that would have that Institute of yours checking their records to make sure they had the right person."

"I've missed you," she said fondly.

His non-magical eye winked at her. "I've missed you, too. After all, it's not every day a fully trained Auror misses a mission because she got flustered and left her wand in the loo…"

Vivian slapped him on the arm playfully as the group began moving downstairs.

"Why don't you go first, Tonks?" she heard McGonagall say loudly from the front of the group before murmuring to Dumbledore, "Wait until she reaches the bottom. Trust me on this."

Once the entire group had seated themselves at the large table in the kitchen and Molly had fussed a bit over Vivian's hand, Dumbledore called the meeting to order.

"As you have noticed, we have another member to welcome back into our ranks," he announced, gesturing at Vivian. "She has returned to us after many years at the Institute for Ancient and Irrelevant Spells, Curses and Hexes in order to work with the Order and possibly survive more than one year as the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor at Hogwarts."

"The odds are at fifty-to-one right now," Mundungus Fletcher whispered to her, winking.

"She is also," Dumbledore continued, looking over his half-moon glasses at Mundungus, "a two-time North American Dueling Champion." Both twins gazed wide-eyed across the table at her. One of them gulped. "It is my hope that she will be able to impart some of her dueling skills to the students at Hogwarts."

"Another Dueling Club is certainly what we need with the war on," McGonagall agreed. "With that and Harry's extra training…"

"Extra training?" Vivian hadn't heard anything about Harry getting extra training. A glance around the table showed that nobody else seemed surprised.

"Yes," Dumbledore answered, his blue eyes twinkling. "Just tonight, the governors of Hogwarts have approved one of the world's foremost experts in the subject to train Harry in combat."

"One of the world's foremost mercenaries, more like," Molly shot back bitterly.

"Mercenaries?" When had all of this occurred?

"The negotiations just began a few weeks ago," Dedalus informed her. "The Cardinal himself offered up one of his teams to help out the cause." It was obvious by his tone that this development was distasteful to him.

Vivian was floored. The Cardinal was known to have unlimited resources at his disposal, the most talented bodyguards, assassins, trackers and thieves in the world lined up to offer their services to him, which he in turn offered to his clients…at a price. It was a price only a select few could pay. Calling The Cardinal's employees mercenaries was like calling The Great Depression a spot of bad money-management.

It simply didn't seem to fit that a man as profit-driven as The Cardinal would offer up his services for free.

"What did he ask for in return?" Vivian inquired tentatively.

"Nothing," Dumbledore answered, smiling. "Apparently he feels a special desire to contribute to the fight against Voldemort." His eyes twinkled again, and Vivian knew immediately that this was nowhere near the whole story.

"At least he _says_ he only wants to contribute to the fight," Arthur pointed out.

Kingsley Shacklebolt chimed in. "Dumbledore is the one who spoke with him. If he says The Cardinal is on the level, and The Cardinal operates the way I think he does, then we should thank our lucky stars that he's on our side in all of this."

"Yes, Kingsley, but at what price?" Arthur countered, a concerned look on his face.

"The Cardinal has assured me himself that he is performing this service pro bono," Dumbledore answered, with the same secretive smile. "He has come to the conclusion that Voldemort does not suit his purposes."

Snape finally spoke up. "In any case, there are other issues to be discussed and time is short," he sneered. Vivian had never particularly cared for Severus Snape, though she'd also been disgusted by the way Remus' friends had bullied him in school. He may be a tiresome git, but even tiresome gits didn't deserve to have their undergarments displayed to the entire student body.

"Yes, Severus?" McGonagall asked patiently.

"The Dark Lord has a new plaything. She's Atreus Castelar's daughter."

Everyone winced a bit at the name. Atreus Castelar had been one of the more notorious Death Eaters during the first war. Death Eaters were well known for killing people, but Atreus had taken it much farther than that. As an Auror, Vivian had come across quite a few of his little masterpieces, and her stomach turned over just thinking about it.

"He had a daughter? I didn't know that," Mundungus commented.

"Very few did. She was only a few months old when Atreus was killed, and it was only a few months later that Reina turned fugitive. The girl's been on the run with her mother ever since. Her mother, incidentally, is now quite dead. Muggle-style, no less."

"That girl's the same age as Ginny, then," Molly breathed. "What could he possibly want with her?" A great deal of motherly worry entered her voice and general sort of murmuring arose around the table.

"I don't know," Severus answered. "But I have a few ideas."

"Such as?" Dumbledore prompted him.

"Well, the Dark Lord always did have a fondness for Atreus. It's possible that he ordered the girl brought back for entirely sentimental reasons. Perhaps he believes she'll be loyal to him."

"So she's just going to conveniently forget about You-Know-Who killing her mum Muggle-style?" one of the twins asked, appalled.

"What does that mean, anyway – Muggle-style?" asked the other twin.

"It means they stabbed her to death," Snape answered flatly.

A general shudder went the length of the table. Even Dumbledore looked a bit pale.

"Or maybe," Arthur asked excitedly, "they used one of those guns they're always going on about. You know, to fill her full of lead."

"Death Eaters," Snape said coldly, "don't use guns."

This was getting entirely too gory. "What other reasons could there be for bringing her back?" Vivian asked, more to push the bloody corpse images out of her head than any other reason.

Snape shot her an unreadable look. "I don't have much information yet. In fact, all I have are impressions, but…it seems as though the Dark Lord has been growing rather interested in the next generation of Death Eaters of late."

"But that's understandable, isn't it?" Charlie Weasley asked. "He'd obviously want to acquire new recruits."

Severus shook his head. "Not interested in gaining new recruits, interested in cultivating a relationship with the children of his most loyal Death Eaters. Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, and now the Castelar girl. Something is in the works, I just don't know what it is."

"Then we have to get her out of there," Molly said firmly.

"Out of Malfoy Manor?" Severus sneered. "That's impossible."

"But she's just a child, and they're holding her prisoner, for Merlin's sake," Molly argued.

"Is it at all feasible?" Vivian asked Severus.

He at least had the decency to look pained. "No," he answered. "There are too many protections and she's too well guarded, and even aside from all of that…" He seemed to shift uncomfortably in his seat.

"What?" Remus asked.

Snape didn't respond right away. He seemed to be gathering his thoughts. "They found her in Vancouver. From what I know of the organization, it should be patently impossible to locate someone halfway across the world, hiding among Muggles. Even the Dark Lord's reach doesn't extend that far."

"A locator charm?" Tonks asked.

"I don't know. I just have the distinct impression that even if we managed to obtain the girl, he would come after her with everything he has. I mean, if he's put out this much effort just to get her in the first place…"

"Bloody hell," one of the twins said, wide-eyed.

"Fred!" Molly scolded him, thankfully allowing Vivian to tell them apart.

"Severus," Dumbledore said suddenly. He had been quietly observing the discussion for some time. "There is nothing we can do in the short term, am I right?"

Snape nodded.

"Then we will have to continue to investigate the matter and see what can be done, though in the long term, I would like to find a way to either rescue her or have her sent to us," Dumbledore concluded.

"You mean have her sent to Hogwarts?" Snape asked, looking amused.

"If necessary. Regardless of her situation and who her parents were, this is a child we are talking about, and it is our responsibility to protect her if we can," Dumbledore answered mildly.

"Hogwarts?" Vivian asked faintly, trying to imagine teaching a student who had never been properly schooled, and yet _had_ been held captive by Death Eaters. "But if she comes to Hogwarts, then what, exactly, are we supposed to do with this girl?"

"Teach her, I'd imagine." McGonagall's tone was dry.

"Teach her?" Snape sneered. "I doubt the girl's ever set foot in a classroom. In fact, I'll lay down odds with Mundungus that the only thing the girl knows are illegal curses her mother taught her. If you think she's going to excel at Herbology, you'd be wrong."

"Illegal curses!" Arthur Weasley chimed in. "You want to bring a child raised like that into Hogwarts?"

"She's a child, Arthur," Molly reminded him.

"I don't think she needs to be protected," he muttered in response. "It sounds to me like the students are going to need protection from _her_."

"So in other words," Vivian said slowly and with dawning horror, "aside from trying to teach classes with a war raging outside the school walls and preparing one of our sixth year students for the battle to decide the fate of the wizarding world, we're also going to have to contend with a trio of thugs-for-hire who claim to be working for us out of the goodness of their hearts and might possibly be teaching a girl raised by a fugitive Death Eater?"

Dumbledore smiled beatifically. "Just another year at Hogwarts."

The Cardinal's Castle

Location Unknown

After Amina and Gautham had met with Dumbledore, the three of them were instructed by Bertha the Breasty to hold tight while Dumbledore ran their plans by the governors of Hogwarts.

They were all uncomfortable speculating on the life and times of The Cardinal while actually underneath his roof, so instead they were embroiled in a cutthroat card game they had made up entitled Three-Person Strip Bridge when Bertha knocked again later that evening.

"Just a second," Amina called as she and Fox began putting their clothes back on. Gautham, however, remained seated, clad only in his boxers and his right sock.

"Aren't you going to get dressed?" Fox asked.

Gautham waved his hand. "I think it's time for a new strategy with the secretarial pool."

"Alright then," Fox said, rolling her eyes. "Come in," she called toward the door.

It opened to admit The Cardinal himself.

Many years later, the mere memory of this event would have the ability to send both Amina and Fox into paroxysms of laughter. At the moment, however, both simply stared up at the ceiling and tried to keep a straight face while The Cardinal raised an imperious eyebrow and Gautham sheepishly pulled on his pants.

"I do not concern myself with the personal habits of my teams," The Cardinal said, apparently to himself. He cleared his throat before speaking again. "The governors have approved your presence at Hogwarts. Dumbledore would like you to report immediately. Or," he qualified, watching Gautham try to surreptitiously locate his shirt, "as immediately as possible."

"Yes, sir," the three mumbled in unison.

"I'll just…wait for you in the hallway," The Cardinal replied, marching out of the room and slamming the door shut.

"Shit, shit!" Gautham cried, panicking. "Where's my shirt?" He got on his knees and peered underneath the chair he'd been sitting in.

"Oh!" Amina said suddenly, looking down at herself. "I think I'm wearing it."

"Well, give it back, would you?"

Knowing that even Gautham had his limits, Amina obediently pulled the shirt over her head and tossed it to him.

Since they hadn't been in the castle that long, it only took them a few minutes to pack up. Gautham hid between his two female companions as they proceeded out into the hallway, following The Cardinal down to his office, where he quickly created a portkey out of a broken quill.

"One minute until it activates. It will take you directly to Dumbledore's office," he informed them, handing the quill over and counting them down on his watch.

Dumbledore was awaiting them with a welcoming smile when they arrived in his office. This time, the power hit Fox with the force of a tidal wave and she swayed a bit before getting her bearings back. Trying to get herself to relax, Fox looked around the office. It was filled with interesting little gadgets that her fingers itched to mess around with. She refrained.

"Sorry it took me so long to collect you," he apologized. "I had a few matters to take care of." They all nodded in acceptance.

"The governors were quite pleased with your diagnostics of the situation," he continued pleasantly, escorting them down a spiral staircase and into a rather dark, forbidding hallway.

"So they'll agree to shift the wards so that we can use some of our detection devices?" Gautham asked.

"And they agreed with my idea of mixing aspects of superspatial and subspatial cloaking spells?" Amina asked simultaneously.

Dumbledore simply chuckled. "They seemed rather loathe to admit it, but you three are the experts, and you've managed to pinpoint weaknesses in our defenses that none of us would have ever imagined."

"Goody," Gautham said, rubbing his hands together in operationalist glee.

"Believe me, sir, when we're done with this place, the only person who would be able to break into it would be…well…us, actually." Amina added.

"So when do we start?" Fox finally managed to break into the conversation.

"As eager as you all are, I think it can wait until the morning," Dumbledore answered. "I just wanted to show you to your rooms tonight." They continued walking down the hall for a while in anticipatory silence.

Suddenly, the voice spoke to Fox. It sounded different, though – distant and crackling, like an untuned radio. Fox initially thought it was because she was near Dumbledore, but she discarded that thought almost immediately. The last time she'd been near him, she'd heard both of their voices, not a bastardization of her own. And then Fox realized that Harry Potter had walked these halls. Her power was being disrupted by her own power residing in another person who had been here not that long ago.

Fox tried to focus on the voice, to draw it out, but it was difficult, and she only got bits and pieces.

The heir's throne…he made her…he will claim…once before, he infiltrated…again… 

As quickly as it came, it faded out again. Fox didn't pay attention the rest of the way to their chambers, instead mulling over what she'd heard, and what it might mean. She thought about bouncing it off of Dumbledore, but decided to wait until tomorrow. The voice had been insistent, but Fox couldn't tell what exactly it had been insistent about.

Finally, they came to a stop in front of a painting of an overweight mermaid sitting on a rock. Men bobbed around her feet, gazing up at her worshipfully, occasionally shoving one another under the water or trying to climb up the rock only to be slapped coquettishly by the mermaid's tail.

"_Funestus Liber_," Dumbledore muttered. The mermaid giggled girlishly and swung open to reveal a velvet-carpeted oak-paneled hallway with tasteful wall sconces. It was quite a departure from the gloomy stone corridors they'd left behind.

They went through a wild maze of carpeted hallways until they finally turned right into a sort of cul-de-sac of three doors. Their names were engraved on plaques outside each of them.

"Our own rooms," Amina sighed happily. "I knew this was going to be a good job."

Apparently Fox had been forgiven for getting them sent to Hogwarts.

"Well, I will say goodnight to you here and let you settle in a bit. I'll be by to collect you in the morning for breakfast. I know Hogwarts can be a bit tricky for newcomers," Dumbledore said, his eyes twinkling in the limited light as he turned to go.

"Our own rooms," Amina repeated, leaning against her door and sighing.

"I am going to get so much action," Gautham commented, running his fingers over the nameplate next to his door.

"With what, twelve-year-olds?" Amina asked, yawning a bit.

"Ugh, no," Gautham said disgustedly. "I'm talking about professors."

"Yes, well, forgive me for not waiting with baited breath for that to happen," Amina answered, rolling her eyes.

"Do _not_," Gautham said fiendishly, holding up one finger, "underestimate me." With that, he turned abruptly and – humming _Hot For Teacher_ under his breath – dramatically swung open his door and slammed it shut.

"Remind me to laugh my ass off in the morning at Gautham being caught in his skivvies by The Cardinal," Amina said, yawning.

I'm not sure I'm going to continue posting with fanfiction.net because I get confused by the computery things and they lose all my neato formatting, which I didn't realize until this chapter. I may repost these to make them look a little better, but if you're impatient, there's a larger majority of the story posted on schnoogle.com.


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